


Place to Rest My Head

by BadgerSigil



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Frank hasn't processed some things, M/M, Mention of drug addiction, Multi, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Self-Hatred, Set after defenders after punisher and after jessica jones season 2, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Trauma, a dog gets hurt later but she gets better, journalism power-couple, some stuff I will tag later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-06-13 02:24:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 48,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15354150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadgerSigil/pseuds/BadgerSigil
Summary: Murdock freezes as Frank eases the hoodie around his shoulders, then half pulls away as Frank puts his arm around him. The defensiveness is short lived. Murdock lets out a grunting exhale and abruptly sags towards him.“Hey, hey…” Frank says but Murdock’s knees buckle. He clutches at Frank with weak fingers, limbs trembling as if the cold is going to shake him right apart. Frank grabs him around the chest, manages to persuade an arm around his shoulder and wraps his arm around Red’s waist. Doesn't want to carry him, he looks so beat up that it must be hurting, but by now all the strength has drained from his legs. Frank holds on, hoping he isn't dislodging fractured ribs or something, and begins to move, to drag him out of the alleyway.Frank develops a habit of 'speaking to Matt' when he isn't around, with the presumption that he can't hear him so what's the harm? Meanwhile, Karen makes a new friend with a similar nose for trouble. Set After Defenders, The Punisher and Jessica Jones season 2.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok folks, I first started writing this last August after Defenders and then added more and rewrote some after Punisher and then a little more after Jessica Jones season 2 and oh my god this was just going to be a one-shot, it is out of control as per usual.  
> The Prologue begins pre-Defenders and pre-Punisher, Chapter one is post-Defenders and Pre-Jessica Jones S2, we're all caught up by Chapter 2 (there shouldn't be any Luke Cage S2 spoilers I will tag and add notes if I change my mind)
> 
> There is a lot of trauma being processed, a lot of friendship, as much hugging as I could manage, and quite a bit of emotional instability too. They're trying their best. If I get anything wrong, as always please let me know.

Prologue

Before, Frank just remembers being alone.   
  
It was dark, his head fucking hurt. Everything was muddled. All he knew was that it was real, they were dead, and that someone wanted  _ him _ dead.   
  
Now, it's all the same, only...   
  
_ Blood under his nails in his nose, eyes, grating bone and... _   
  
He feels different.

  
Not dead inside, he almost wishes he were. It would be easier if he didn't ache. If he was cold.   
If there would ever be an end. There's still so much to do, Schoonover is dead, but there are still stragglers. Loose ends.

  
Doesn't know what the feeling is. Needs it gone. Needs to keep going, finish his  _ duty. _

  
He's huddled in the dark, cold and alone and hollow inside, all the raw edges of him too gaping to contemplate.   
Needs something. To talk. Anything.   
  
He takes a breath.   
"Hey Red." He says. "Y'know I could talk to you. From the start. None of it was good things, huh."   
  
And he knows that he can't hear him, not unless he happens to be on this block and there happens to be nothing else going on. He doesn’t even know how well he can hear, barely tested it aside from getting a nod from him from another rooftop, once. No chance, really. Still...   
  
"It's quiet." He murmurs. "An' my head's too loud." He sighs. "Remember when I said I was uh, I was real tired? It don't go away." He shifts, tightening the blanket around himself. "I hope you're doin' ok." He says. "Hope you're doin' better than me."   
  
*   
  
"Y'know, Red." Frank's got blood in his mouth, isn't sure if it's his. “Sometimes I just wish they’d learn. Bet you get that a lot. Wish the others’d set more of an example. Guess mine don’t get much chance to do that.” He finds himself giggling, is startled by the manic quality to his own voice.

Ah well. He’s talking to a guy he doesn’t really know about things he wouldn’t tell him if he were really here. Besides which, it’s been months since anyone has so much as sighted Daredevil, let alone credited anything to him.

He checked on Murdock, from (he hopes) a far enough vantage point for him not to sense that he was there. He’s alive, anyway, but at least now Frank knows that this habit he’s fallen into isn’t  really compromising anything.

“Anyways.” He continues, ignoring the way his hands shake with exhaustion as he dismantles some equipment, pauses to wipe some blood on his pants because it’s starting to make his hands sticky. “I figure you of all people get this. How it’s easier… once you’ve got some kills under your belt. Knockouts in your case. Feel like you’re makin’ a dent. But there’s that feeling you can’t shake, anyway. Don’t know what it is.” He shrugs and carefully tucks the right pieces into their correct places in his black duffel bag.   
  
*   
  
Whiskey on a roof. Frank isn't sure how he got to be here, with a bottle, hands too numb from cold to even shake. The men responsible, the ones left in the city, are gone. Scratched off the list.

  
He's empty.  
  
Just... empty.  
  
He's up there hours, in the dark. Long enough for his body to be stiff and cramped from his stupid perch between the fire escape and a concrete partition.  
  
Not sure exactly what street this is.  
  
Not sure when he last slept. Ate. Showered.  
  
When he sees the shape he doesn't react. Isn't even sure it's real. Can't always trust his mind, these days. Then it's gone and it doesn't matter.  
  
"Frank."  
  
He doesn't startle. He's too consumed by apathy and sleep deprivation and whiskey. He does turn his head to scowl at Red, stood across from him, silhouetted against the city lights. He isn't wearing the dumbass devil getup. Still. Always wrong place wrong time.  
  
"What." He snaps. Feels wrong. Fits badly. The shape of the word too at odds with the soft ones he used the night before, holed up in a safe house with too many guns and minor burns to think straight.  
  
Murdock- 'cause he knows it's him, told him so, murmured it into the void enough times to forget he never actually told him to his face- just stands there, moving his head in that way of his. He steps into the light, after a moment. No mask to speak of. Smug bastard knows he knows, and it irritates Frank more than he has any right to. He was never going to use it against him, it shouldn’t matter. Frank’s eyes adjust to the light enough to see that Murdock is frowning.  
"Haven't heard... much of you for a while." Murdock says.  
  
Frank is transparent, suddenly. Hollow. Paper-like and breakable.  
"Been laying low." His whisper scrapes out of him, rushed. A need to fill the silence, show he's casual. Prove his strength. Does he mean..?

  
Because Frank- until last night- hadn't spoken to Red for weeks. Thinks it's weeks.   
  
He could just mean sightings. Just mean less crime scenes with Frank's signatures stamped all over them.   
  
Doesn't know if it's a hope or a fear that's making his heart pick up.   
  
"Take care." Red's voice is too soft. He turns and leaves the rooftop.   
  
Frank untangles himself from the railing the moment he's out of sight. Stumbles to his hideout feeling watched. What hurts is, it doesn't feel invasive. There's a sensation in his heart that feels dangerously close to comfort, and it's threatening to rip apart the fortress he's built around himself.   
  
Doesn't have time to think. Has to leave town to mop up the stragglers.

 

Does so mechanically. It's oddly silent, outside the city. He always thought so. Crossing the country in a stolen van, killing his way through a list of runners. Head full of noise and static all at once and a need, just a burning need to finish it.

 

And then it's done.

 

***

 

Frank can only hide in his own head for so long. The monster in his bones can only take so much waiting to die.

Then Micro happens. It all  _ happens _ .

And when it's over, somehow, Frank is still breathing. Somehow, he's still alive.

Somehow he  _ chose _ to be alive. He's willing to try.

  
  


Chapter 1

It begins with a coffee, nine weeks and three days after Matt dies. Karen wishes she didn’t know the exact number of days, but she does, so, there’s that.

  
Karen loves Foggy, she does, he's her best friend. Her only friend, really. She feels  _ terrible _ but seeing him, seeing the space in his eyes where Matt used to be, the guilt. She has to get away sometimes.   
  
It's Trish who seeks her out first. Karen isn't used to being  _ sought _ . She is a seeker, first and foremost. But Trish, that woman from the police station with a familiar fire behind her eyes, the woman from the radio station, fighting to be allowed to tell the truth, she wants to meet her.   
  


Trish Talk’s ratings are at an all time high. Karen cannot for the life of her fathom why  _ Trish Walker  _  wants to see her, but she can hardly turn her down.

  
It's a little bit more hipster than the scruffy diner's Karen feels comfortable spending time in.   
  
The walls are clad in that stylishly scruffy wood that probably cost more than it had any right to. The floor is polished concrete. All of the furniture is made of reclaimed industrial stuff. The milk crate tables look as if they cost more than everything in Karen's apartment put together.   
  
All of it makes her feel too long limbed, awkward, badly put together. She's at high school and she's grown too fast and her her jeans are too short again but mom and dad haven't bought her new clothes yet 'cause she just grows too fast...   
  
Trish is there already, hair up in one of those stylish messy buns that Karen hasn't ever managed to get her hair to co-operate into. She tucks a strand behind her ear as Karen watches.   
"Hey." Karen says, feeling sure for just one horrible minute that Trish will throw her one of those assessing looks she remembers so well.   
  
Trish's face breaks into a smile, wide and warm. Karen's chest unclenches. She sits opposite her. Trish closes her phone and slides it to the side.   
  
"Thank you for coming.” The voice she uses is familiar. It’s her call-in voice, Karen realises.

"Well." Karen shrugs her bag into her hand and lowers it to the ground beside her. "Couldn't miss it. I'm a fan."   
"That's a coincidence." Trish says, smiling one of those almost coy half smiles that are so strangely familiar.   
"I'm a fan of  _ you _ . Your  _ work, _ specifically. Though, something about you really stuck with me when we ended up locked inside the same police station.”

“It sounds a lot more dangerous and exciting when you put it like that.”

“I’ve been in enough police stations to have seen the  _ unglamorous  _ side of them.” Trish shrugs. Karen drops her eyes. Maybe she knows a bit about that too.

“Hey.” Trish says quickly. “Didn’t mean it like that.”

“Like how?” Karen stays casual and raises her head up again. “What did you want to talk to me about?” Karen switches back to business just to dispel the edge of awkwardness. Trish grimaces.

“My network won’t let me cover a story. Thought you might be the person to do what I can’t in this case.”

“Maybe.” Karen smiles. She reaches for the file and Trish traps it with the plan of her hand, quick as a snake. Karen all but jumps.

“I want the credit.” She grins and Karen laughs.

“Of course.”

 

“You seem  _ enthusiastic _ at least!” Trish seems relieved. Karen looks up from the open folder that she’s rapidly skim reading. “What did you think I’d asked you here for?” Trish laughs but it’s gentle.

“Oh.” Karen shifts awkwardly. “50/50 that you were going to ask me about the Castle case. Those are usually the odds I experience....”

“Oh!” Trish reclines with a smile. “Well. That’s about the odds I experience interviews being about It’s Patsy. Not that I’m comparing the two!” She says quickly looking on the edge of mortified and for just a moment, showing a slip of the nerves as Karen herself was feeling only five minutes ago.

“That’s ok, I see what you mean. Distractions from that  _ journalist _ lifestyle that seems so easy for everyone  _ else _ to get their hands on.” Karen gives her a quick grin, shyer than she means it to be.

“I mean.” Trish smirks. “The other 50% of the time, it’s about my history of drug abuse as if anyone still cares about my sordid past so…” Karen laughs, Trish’s glittering eyes assuring her that she is welcome to do so.

“Well then it seems like I’m experiencing some better odds here.”

“Which is why I come to you.” Trish nods.

 

*

 

It’s about people with powers. Karen’s own enthusiasm seems to ignite her body and mind into a frenzy. She writes through the night, spurred on with the look in Trish’s eyes. Confidence in her. She’s used to worry, to doubt. Even in the good ones. Maybe male journalists think its inspirational, somehow. Maybe male journalists should try it on other men in that case.

 

When she’s finished it, she has such a buzz about it that she nearly bites off Mitchell’s head when he sends her some  _ strong  _ feedback. He follows it up with a visit to her office, where he reminds her, only barely seriously, that he  _ is  _ still,  _ actually _ her boss.

“You know I gotta go  _ out there _ so you can reel me back in, Mitch.” She shrugs one shoulder. “If I started out reasonable, you’d never let me get away with anything.” Mitchell sighs like he always does when she’s right.

“You are  _ absolutely _ sure that you wanna go there with this?” He says, voice tired but it’s put on, she knows. He loves it really. “There’s some pretty serious accusations in here.”

“Please. I  _ barely _ suggest that the NYPD  _ may  _ have been how that explosion linked to the Spider-Man from YouTube was so thoroughly scrubbed from the news. There was an arrest,  _ nobody _ knows who or why or what for. This has to get out there.  _ Someone _ is either helping heroes or more importantly  _ being  _ helped and not publicising that. This is the sort of positive publicity gifted people could really use.”

“I did  _ read _ the article Karen.” Mitch sighs.

“There's all sorts of rumours I didn’t include you know!” She finds herself waving her pen at him and lowers it down. “I did catch a lead that  _ Ironman _ was involved. I only left it out of the article because my trail went cold, but it seemed more likely that you’d think. Most people have had more than enough helpful input from Tony Stark in this city. Especially after Skovia and the accords, he’s already not well liked for cashing in on the clean-up after the incident instead of letting local businesses make something back from their losses…”

“Ok ok. I’ll count myself lucky you didn’t go after Stark.” He puts his palms up, a signal of surrender.

 

“Some people aren’t going to be happy.” He tells her, turning to leave.

“If my articles were supposed to make people  _ happy _ I’d be running a lifestyle column.” She retorts. He turns back to her before the door closes, and actually almost smiles.

 

*

 

“Hey lady, wanna spill the beans on the Castle story?”

“Trish Walker?” Karen blurts out when she hears her familiar voice on answering her cell, distorted as it is with a cartoon gruff Brooklyn drawl. She gave her number but she’s still  _ deeply _ shocked that she’s  _ calling  _ her. Trish is firmly the sort of woman who you  _ call _ . Usually on live radio.

“You did it.” Trish sounds almost hushed with excitement and something else that Karen can’t quite place. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

 

*

 

“Soda?” Karen asks. The bar is  _ fancy _ . So fancy that Trish’s soda cost more than she’d pay for her martini at Josie’s. Her martini costs more than her shirt did.

“I don’t drink these days.” Trish shrugs. “I had my fill as a young pop star.”

“ _ Oh.” _ Karen had forgotten. She knew, of course. She knows how to google. She hadn’t known  _ before  _ that, not more than vague memories of adults speaking in hushed voices that Patsy went off the rails. Karen had never really watched  _ It’s Patsy _ herself. Never more than a few episodes around friends houses. She was more of a book girl. Karen makes herself look at Trish, but finds her back curved lazily, hip leant up against the bar. Trish grins and wiggles her drink back and forth to make the ice clink against the glass.

“Let’s find a booth, huh?”

 

So they talk, shouting over the not-great live music at times. Trish is… so alive.  _ Passionate. _ It reminds her of the intense look Matt would get on his face when he would zero in on the bare  _ morality _ of a case, when she and Foggy were drifting further afield for something to use and they needed reminding what they were all there for. It’s that, but it has its own flavour, too.

 

She talks about the city. They take turns. Things they’ve seen. Love. Art. Hate. Colour. People they’ve met. Karen gets a sudden deep sense of kinship when she recognises that same fear of growing close to people colouring the edge of her stories and below that, the same loneliness that pulls her in despite herself.

 

Trish is passionate to the point of frustration. Karen gets that.

 

Which is why, when they part ways that night, she smiles and reaches to touch her arm.

“Same time next week? I think I’m working on something you might be interested in.”

“Saturday morning, coffee.” Trish suggests with force.

 

*

 

Of course, Saturday morning coffee turns into scheming, which turns into Sunday afternoon break-ins.

“What are you  _ wearing? _ ” Trish says, open mouthed as Karen shifts on her feet.

“You said be inconspicuous!” Karen protests, laughter spilling out of her that Trish is doing the schoolroom bully script that Karen had feared so much on their first meeting, only in this bizarre unforeseen scenario.

“I’m a  _ jogger!”  _ Trish gestures to her tank top and crop running leggings.

“Oh yeah.” Karen folds her arms over her blouse. “You’re not gonna turn any heads dressed like that.”

“Can you  _ not _ be Miss appropriate office wear for  _ one _ weekend afternoon?” Trish whines.

“I’m wearing flats.” Karen blurts out before she can think better of it.

“Hey office lady, what are you doing in our secret lair?” Trish says, putting on a deep tenor.

“Listen If my outfit makes the thugs we’re looking for say ‘hey lady’ when they find us, my disguise is better than your’s.”

“ _ If _ they find us, please.” Trish laughs. “Come on with your flat shoes we’re wasting time.”

 

What they’re looking for is some kind of evidence that a major drug ring that Karen is on the verge of uncovering are using some dockside warehouses as a part time base for taking deliveries.

“The hard part is going to be proving that the owners know about it. If they’re just squatting…” Trish says.

“...There’s no story. Got it.” Karen finishes for her, as if her words aren’t a reminder to Trish herself that they aren’t here to take these men out. They are here to take down the wealthy shipping company, not the drug runners themselves. Well. Preferably all of them.

 

There’s a fire escape around the rear of the building, directly across from the alleyway in which Karen parked her car. It’s only a few floors, but the old iron is rusted away, completely rotted for the last few feet. Karen reaches, easily hooks her hands around the ledge of the roof and hauls her up. Trish moves up the remaining distance. At that moment, there’s a terrible deep groan of metal, a screech of tearing rusted bars. Trish’s eyes lock with Karen’s. She has enough time to wonder at the blue of them before Trish jumps.

 

Karen throws herself at the edge, body slamming against the concrete, reaching her arms, heart in her mouth. Her hands close around Trish’s wrists. Trish swings against the building, what is left of the ancient fire bending away from the brick below her. Karen tries not to shout, shoulders feeling torn from her sockets as she heaves Trish up onto the roof.

 

They both roll onto the backs, panting, before Karen feels the laughter welling up in her. She meets Trish’s eyes, sparkling in the daylight, and they’re both weakly giggling in semi-silence, lying against the concert.

“Regretting not going the sports bra direction.” Karen whispers. Trish snorts.

 

*

 

In the end, they don’t get much. A single name and then very out of breath running away before somebody spotted them. Karen thinks it’s probably worth the risk of tetanus. Besides, even if the name comes to nothing, she thinks, the small victory, bumping her shoulder against Trish who turns to her with a blazing grin, it’s worth the scratched knees for being able to hug her close and feel the rush.

 

***

 

Frank is ok for weeks. Routine. The new construction job is working out this time. He clocks in and out when he's supposed to, he even makes conversation. Joins the others for drinks Friday night. Learns names, cracks jokes, sometimes.

 

Maybe feels like a ghost playing at alive sometimes, but it's ok.

 

Gets drinks after work with Curtis every Tuesday. Doesn't miss a group session, it’s helping, he thinks. It takes David two turned down invitations to dinner before he tracks down Frank’s new address and gently confronts him about it outside the apartment building.

 

Leo isn't afraid of him like he thought she would be, now. Sarah pours him a hefty and much appreciated glass of rosé and presses a tub of leftovers into his hands as he's leaving. 

 

David hugs him goodbye, sudden and warm and close and for a moment, Frank doesn't have any breath. David gives him a squeeze. Frank presses his face against his shoulder and holds onto him until his hands stop twitching. Frank thanks him for the dinner, quiet and gruff as they break apart.

 

“You’re coming next week.” David tells him as he makes his way down the path. Frank half turns to grin at him.

“You don't want an invitation to my place?” Frank says. David snorts.

“Seven o clock, be here or I’ll assume you're dead.” His voice goes all reedy and strained on the joke, isn't ready for that yet, really.

 

Frank pulls in a slow breath. Can still feel David’s hands holding him together, cradling his head, slick and sticky with his blood, David’s hair trailing against Frank’s mashed up face, sticking to his busted lips.

 

For a moment they just stand and look at each other in silence, the moment in both of their eyes, David’s blood pumping through Frank’s heart.

 

David still has all that bushy fucking hair. Before, Frank had assumed it was his basement-dweller look. How he was ever accused of being a hipster when people like David just… walk around like that in broad daylight, is beyond him. Frank shakes his head at the dumb smile that David still has has on like an apology. As if he has anything to apologise for.

“Alright. Thanks for the potatoes.”

 

*

 

It’s the night after the family dinner that Frank gets the chest spasms. It’s different, this time. He wakes with a horrible start, worse than usual, to find one hand gripping his other wrist compulsively searching for zip ties and only finding scar tissue. His chest feels broken and gaping and he thinks he’s bleeding out from the mouth, he can taste blood again and he’s hyperventilating before his mind can reason that he’s safe.

 

But he isn’t safe. Something is  _ wrong  _ something hasn’t healed right, something has  _ ruptured, something... _

 

Drags himself to his phone and falls to his knees. Fights for breath to speak.

“Curt.” He manages.

“Frank? What time is it?”

“Please.” He chokes out. Speaking around the horribly familiar sensation like broken glass in his lungs.

“Frank god Frank are you hurt?” Frank can hear the rustling of Curt getting out of bed.

“Woke up with. Chest fuckin’— hurts Curt.”

“Stay with me, get yourself comfortable if you can I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

 

Frank doesn’t register Curt’s arrival until he’s suddenly aware that he’s lying back in the arm chair with Curt knelt up at his side. His hands run carefully up and down Frank’s abdomen.

“Hey you’ve got some light in your eyes now. Can you hear me?”

“Yeah. I can hear you.” Frank murmurs.

“Welcome back. Had me worried for a little bit back there I’m not gonna lie.”

“Sorry.” Frank grunts. “Calling you so late.”

“It’s early.” Curt shrugs. “Not a problem alright? You needed me.”

“Do I… not need you  _ now?”  _ Frank mumbles.

“I’m gonna get a friend of mine to check you out. He can give you another X-ray and whatever else he thinks. But Frank.” Curt grips his shoulder and Frank’s knows at once that he’s not going to like whatever he says next.

“I’m pretty certain you had an anxiety attack.”

“I’ve, Curt I’ve had that shit before, you know I have. Bunch of times. Didn’t feel like  _ that.” _

“This could be different. You’re still healing. You were  _ tortured, _ Frank. By someone you trusted. You were down there a long time. That’s going to affect you in ways you haven’t experienced before.”

 

Frank sits in silence. Drums one hand against the arm of the chair. Examines the sensation now that he’s grounded enough to do so. It’s not so bad now. Still flaring up and down with jagged spasms of pain, but he can’t taste blood. Wonders if he ever could. Tongue stings. Maybe he bit it. Finds himself feeling his chest from the outside and drops his hand.

“If that weren’t real, Curt.” He says slowly. “That was pretty uh… that was intense for my mind to just. Make up.”

“Hey, listen. It  _ is _ real. The damage was  _ heavy _ , Frank. Billy kicked the shit out of you right after. There’s going to be some damaged nerves. I cleared you for the job because you needed to do  _ something _ but you should be taking it easy, there is still be unhealed tissue damage. It caught you when you were sleeping and—“

“—And I made it worse because I had a goddamn panic attack yeah.” Frank doesn’t mean to snap but he just needs Curt to  _ not  _ say it out loud

“Yeah.” Curt says quietly.

 

“How much is left, Curt?” Frank tries to smile wryly, pretend like he’s not terrified, even though he knows that Curt knows otherwise. “How much of the version of me you knew before?”

“Hey. You’re not a different  _ version.  _ You’ve just lived through some things alright? Am I still Curtis?”

“Course you are.” Frank mumbles.

“Well then.” Curt reaches to hold Frank’s other shoulder. The firm pressure of both of Curt’s hands holding him in place pulls his mind back into focus better than anything so far. “My leg can feel like it’s just been taken off. Been a while since it happened, but I used to wake up thinking I was back bleeding out in the dirt. Used to wonder where  _ you _ were.” He smiles as if it’s funny, somehow, and Frank feels himself shudder as if distantly.

“Curt I—“

“Don’t. Don’t you dare. I’m only gonna say this one more time. You didn’t make that bomb. You are not responsible for  _ not  _ stopping the shit people do.”

Frank huffs, almost annoyed but not quite.

“My point is, you’re not any less  _ you _ for needing some help. For not being all the way healed yet.”

 

Frank sits in silence and concentrates on the sensation of Curt’s strong hands on his shoulders. Eventually, he finds he can look at Curt’s face. His eyes are warm and crinkled and Frank wishes he’d looked up at him sooner because a wave of settling stillness passes over him.

“You got some colour back now.” Curt declares, releasing Frank’s shoulders and sitting back.

“Heh. Thanks. As always.” Frank manages a smile.

“Yeah well let’s hope I’m right and it is just all in your head, ok?”

 

*

 

It is all in his head. Frank isn’t sure if he’s relieved or not when Curtis’s quiet friend sits him down and talks him through it once he’s done testing. There’s a lot of scar tissue but it’s nothing life changing. He doesn’t have to stop working. He should do some physio to loosen things up. It’s going to be uncomfortable for some time but it shouldn’t stop him from living his life. Frank thanks him as best he can manage, feeling his mind drifting just a little even as he tries his best to ground himself in the present. It’s going to take a long time. Obvious as that fact seems, now, Frank is struggling to really compute that in his mind. He’s never  _ had _ time.

*

Frank sees flowers in Karen Page’s window. It’s the first time he’s allowed himself to walk past her apartment. How long has she been leaving flowers there?

He hasn’t seen her since the day in the elevator. Still, he reminds himself again, like a mantra, that he could afford to wait, that  _ he has time. _

It's a disarming feeling. Too light, too loose, like maybe he’ll spill his insides everywhere now there's no pressure holding him together.

 

Maybe it's that feeling that has him meeting her at their semi-usual dockside bench sooner rather than later. Maybe it’s because the daisies she chose to put in her window cause a tiny unexplainable pang in his chest. Maybe he's just feeling lonely, like she said.

_ Loneliness _ is something Curtis stressed early on is  _ important _ . Recognising the feeling. Doing something about it,  _ ‘cause you’re a pack animal, Frank, you know as well as I do that the loner thing doesn't work for you. You want something you can sustain now, you need people around you to do that. _

He's right, Frank thinks, feeling his shoulders relax when he hears the familiar click of Karen’s shoes on the tarmac behind him. That's another thing Curt’s been telling him. Pay attention to what your body’s doing. How you react. Learn the patterns.

“Hey, Karen.” Frank stands and greets her with a hug. Karen grins, wide and shiny and holds him close. A warm, firm grip, knocks the breath out of Frank just a little. Everything from the press of her palms against his back to the fresh, airy smell of her. She breaks away, but not far, holding onto his forearms. He closes his hand loosely around her’s in return, can't help himself.

 

They haven't seen each other since that day, stood in the elevator. She doesn't seem to want to let him go, a lighter feeling than last time. Her hair is pulled up out of her face and she's wearing yellow, looking like a sunny day come to life even on this dingy overcast Thursday afternoon.

“You're looking well.” She says, bright and honest. He’s grinning back at her, can't help it. Everything about her is so desperately comforting. The angle of her head and how strands of her fine, fine hair are falling in her face where they've slipped from her hair tie. Frank finds himself running his thumb back and forth across her skin, a little chilled where her coat sleeve has fallen away from her bare arm.

“You're lookin’ pretty great yourself.”

 

They sit, close enough to brush elbows. Easy closeness.

“I don't have any favours to ask.” Karen admits. “I got your message, I just, I needed to see you alive. You weren't in such good shape last time I saw you.” Her brow crinkles in the middle, her lips tug into a little grimace.

 

She watches him figure out how to respond to that because she doesn’t know the half of it, feeling himself fidget a bit under her eyes. There's an ache of guilt creeping up his chest at her words. Prickling against his mostly-healed lungs and ribcage.

“Thought I better let you know I was alive.” He half grins, sheepish. The truth is he didn't want her to see him banged up even  _ worse _ than how he left her. She’s seen enough blood on him. She already worries about him more than he has any right to. She doesn't need to know about…  _ that. _

“But uh. Didn't think I should risk meeting right away, probably shouldn’t be here  _ now. _ ” He smiles at her. She doesn't seem convinced. Eyes a little narrowed, mouth pinching. She drops it though, doesn't question him and bumps her shoulder into his.

“You're right where you should be.” She tells him softly.

 

So they just talk. Frank feels more settled than he has for longer than he can recall, after. It isn’t long before there’s a fresh vase of tulips, in a deep red and golden yellow this time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank gets an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jessica Jones Season 2 spoilers in this chapter, only Trish-specific stuff.

Before he knows it he's doing some recon for Karen here, a stakeout there. Stakeouts turn to sharing a quiet drink. Maybe she can sense how much he needs the distraction. He can’t even pick up a guitar. The thought of it sends a wave of sickening horror through his stomach, calls to mind an imagined Maria, blood from his hands smearing across the soft skin of her’s. He never mentioned it to anyone. Nobody but David knows about the guitar he kept stashed in his dark little hideout in the beginning, anyhow. Maybe Karen just needs this, herself. It becomes regular. Helping her out, sharing some small talk and silence. Karen is family. Now that it's safer, he can't find it in himself to abandon that.

She hugs him, just as David did. There's something deep in the way she clings onto him as if she’s _desperate_ for him to know she cares. As if there's something _missing._ He felt it before, but he never had time to stop and think about it. The third time it happens, he has to ask, broken away from her and reaching hesitantly to brush his fingertips against her cheek,

“You lose someone, Karen?”  
“Matt.” She blurts out in a whisper, ducks her head to hide her eyes. It makes sense, suddenly. Clicks into place. How Karen went from _that night_ with Schoonover to being happy to see him, how _you’re dead to me_ became catching him in her arms in her apartment and a desperate need to assure him he deserved to _live_ at least.

Lurking behind the ache of Karen’s loss, the news dredges up things that Frank didn't want to remember about _before_ he travelled the country hunting down what was left, but he keeps his face straight, grips Karen’s shoulders and listens until she's mumbled all she's willing to tell, and then he wraps her up in his arms and lets her compose her grief, face safely hidden against his shoulder.

 

Hits him harder than he shows Karen. Can’t explain it. Before, he always suspected it was the inevitability for both of them, The Punisher and Daredevil. Maybe it’s the irony that, out of the two of them, it was Frank who figured out how to have an _after_. That Matt never got to have that.

Only, without Karen, Frank knows he would never have made it here. Karen, who lost one friend to the darkness and couldn’t bare to lose Frank, too. Maybe Frank has to credit Red with saving his life yet again.

He keeps on because at the end of the day, he _didn't_ really know the man who saved his life so many times. He managed not to think about him for long enough, anyway. It shakes him, but he doesn’t lose his balance.

It's an armed robbery that does it. Nobody gets hurt. He tackles the guy and kicks the gun away and he's out of there before anyone can call him a _hero,_ but it's in the paper that he checks for photographs.

The word makes him shift uncomfortably, throw the paper down and rub a hand against his growing hair.

 _Hero_.

He snorts. Tries to laugh it off, but the truth is, it was almost a relief to have to _work_ like that. He can _deal_ with armed robberies. When something like that is going down, there's a simple solution, a clear goal. None of this damn… uncertainty.

It's another day before his mind just gets too loud and itchy to keep going like this and he gets home from work and curls up at the end of his bed, presses his back against the wall and curses himself for being so fucking _fragile_. It's still early, not quite dark. He gazes out of the window, watches the street lights switch on. The familiar wordless discomfort has leached into every part of him. Doesn't know what to do with himself.

Thinks about calling Curtis. No. Curtis deals with his whining once a week as it is. David has a family. Karen… Karen has already lost too much. He can do this alone. He has to.

Only, Frank feels something terrible building in his chest. A tightness. Uncomfortable cobwebs of discomfort just beginning to wind through his lungs. A familiar rolling acceleration of breath. _No_ , fuck, c’mon.

“Hey Red.” He says. It's not habit anymore. It feels stiff and strange. He forces the words out though.  
“I don't do this. Talk to dead guys. Not usually.” He draws in a breath that wheezes and stings more than he'd like, so he keeps going.  
“But you, you would get this. You've felt this, I guess, huh Red? When you tried to, tried to move on. How do you shut it off? That other side? Cause it's not, it's not a side really it's just _me_ just, parts of me that come out, sometimes. S’not like they _go_ anywhere, those parts I just. Keep them out of the way for when I need them again…” Suddenly, he can almost feel Red’s disapproval at where his mind is going. “I know you'd say I've gotta just. Try again. Ain't that what you said?” Frank says, tired and quiet. “Listen Red. I gotta do this. I can't let myself… I want this. I do want this. So why can't I just…” he swallows and make himself breathe evenly. 

He's being too hard on himself. That's what Curtis would say if Frank could bring himself to call him. Those words don't help. He doesn't want to have to wait for this feeling to go away. He's alone in the dark again and it just hurts, however long it's going to last, it hurts in that way he never learned how to cope with. He's tried sweating it away, tried distracting himself, waiting it out _is_ the only thing to do, he knows that.

So he eats. Takes a shower. Goes through the motions of going to bed and reads until his eyes itch and he's not taking in the words and…

*

Trish is shaking and strange when Karen finds her on her doorstep. It’s been a good few months since they last spoke. A lot has happened. To Karen herself, and to Trish, judging by what she's seen in the news.

“I’ve been calling you.” Karen says, quieter than she wants to, because she can’t bring herself to show her the little piece of _mad_ that was building in her heart from not hearing from her. Not when her eyes look like that. It’s a familiar expression. She’s seen it in Matt, in Frank. In the goddamn _mirror_. Glazed, disconnected.

They were friends before. Becoming closer than Karen lets herself get with most people. Not without some kind of traumatic event breaking down boundaries as it did with Foggy, Matt, _Frank_ especially.

Not close enough, Karen had assumed when she tried to reach out and got no-where. But now, here she is, standing outside her apartment in the corridor, pale, red around the eyes and just deeply _tired_ looking.

“Come in.” She says quickly, aware that she has been staring at her for several seconds.

“Coffee?”  
“Yes please.” Trish hovers in Karen’s meagre living space until Karen, in the process of hurriedly retrieving the nicest cups she can find from the back of her cupboard, realises she’s still stood there and waves her toward the couch.  
“Sorry I’m _barely_ civilised.” She says, laughing Nervously. “Just, shove my bag on the floor if it’s in your way…”  
“Thank you.” Trish murmurs.

“How are you?” Karen says, quiet, finding it easier to speak with the background noise of the coffee maker.  
“Alive.” Trish says blankly, as if that’s _it_ , as if there’s nothing more to it.  
“If you have anything you want to talk about…”  
“I’m living with my mother.” Trish says suddenly. There’s an acute gulp to her voice when she says the word _mother_. A rawness.

Trish’s back is over-straightened and stiff, twitching forward and back just a few stifled fractions. It’s a repetitive motion that is one part that aching restless rocking that is as much a part of Frank’s makeup as his very bones to Karen, and one part the artificial stillness that only girls who were repeatedly told _stop fidgeting_ by stern parents and teachers can fully understand. Restless energy welded shut by the repeated instruction to _sit still_ and stop inflicting your unseemly annoying _life force_ on the world. Be a quiet, still, good little dolly.

“Your mother?” Karen asks, gingerly. Trish’s face twitches all over, bunches and immediately snaps back to blank. Or as blank as she is able to manage right now. Trish never spoke of it directly, but Karen has gathered that Trish was not speaking to her mother with very good reason.  
“We sold my apartment.” Trish says. “Selling. The first offer fell through. We’re selling it.”  
“Why?” Karen says gently. Trish can’t meet her eyes for long, but her gaze flicks up to meet to Karen’s and away again. She looks confused. As if she’s shocked by Karen’s interest, or her softness maybe,  
“Because I can’t be trusted. I’ve flushed my career away, mother is going to help… going to help me get…” She trails off, shaking now.  
“Trish.” Karen moves to her. Very gently reaches a hand to rest on top of her’s. Trish doesn’t move. Stiffens up further, even. “Whatever happened, it’s over now. You can talk to me.”  
“I didn’t, I didn’t come here to load off on you, I just… missed you.”  
“Hey, lady.” Karen smiles and kneels in front of the couch. She takes Trish’s hand in hers. “You’re my _friend._ You can talk to me without it being… a burden or whatever it is you’re worried about.” 

Trish goes very quiet at that. Her disconnected blank expression shifts a couple of times. Karen stands to give her space, busies herself making coffee and lets the silence weave around them. It’s an alien force between them. All they do is talk. The two of them are only ever _silent_ when they’re trespassing on private property.

Karen places Trish’s coffee on the low table in front of the couch and then settles herself on the carpet in the space between the two. She leans her side up against the cushions, a few feet away from Trish, enough to be close without smothering her.

 

They sit in silence for a long time. Long enough for Karen’s coffee to grow cool enough to sip.

Eventually, Trish sucks in a shallow breath.  
“You ever shot someone, Karen?” Trish’s voice is tiny shaking croak of sound.  
Karen feels as if her body and mind have been plunged into icy cold water. For a moment she can’t breathe. 

The only other person who _knows_ is Frank, because he read it in her eyes when she held him at gunpoint. She didn’t _tell_ him. She didn’t need to. And she doesn’t want Trish to know, at least, she doesn’t think she does, which is why, she is as shocked as Trish when she hears herself speak.  
“Yes.” Karen whispers. Trish’s mouth falls open and her hands tighten on Karen’s shoulders. She sags a little toward her.  
“You have?” Trish whispers, voice cracking, tears rolling down her face but she looks almost relieved. Or, perhaps that’s not what her face is showing. More like shared understanding. Karen reaches to cup her damp cheek with one hand.  
“Don’t spread it around.” Karen chokes out half a syllable of bitter laughter, trying to smile but it’s empty and painful on her face. “Stay with me.” Karen tells her quietly. “You don’t have to go home if you… If you need to get away, you can stay here.”

Trish sits in silence again for a moment.

“Thank you.” She sounds _so_ tired. Karen hears an echo of Matt in her voice. That night he came to the office, broken and shaking and weighed down with responsibility she wouldn’t find the source of for a long time. Karen does what she should have done all that time ago, though she didn’t know she had to. She reaches out to cup Trish’s face in both her hands. She kisses her on the forehead. Trish’s hands come up to take her forearms.

“I’m here for whatever you need. You are worth it. You don't need to be alone. Please remember that. Please.” Trish only pulls her close and presses her face against her shoulder.

*

Speaking to Matt has firmly become habit again. Frank doesn’t tell anyone, but any time he needs to get something off his chest, when it’s the sort of thing he can’t even make himself tell Curtis and the others, he tells Red.

Stuck at 3am with his chest feeling like it’s full of sawdust after a dream that’s turned into nothing but twisted dark and painful shapes now that his eyes are open. He tells Red all about the _wrongness_ under his skin, and yeah, the uncontrollable wheezing eases up. It works.

Curtis doesn’t need to know that he still wakes up feeling like it’s maybe ten years ago, before his sleep got too erratic for bed to always be a peaceful place. In the fuzzy moments of waking, he’s comfortable, Maria to his right, a tiny Lisa nestled between them, but his eyes open only to find his bed empty and cold. The confusion is worse than anything. The dream so real that he doesn’t know where he is for _minutes_ , having to claw himself all the way through the unspeakable horror in between and back to whatever small life he’s scrambled together for himself. Feels like he’s leaving them all over again. He’s crying, curled under the comforter and muffling it so even his neighbours can’t hear, if they’re awake. He tells Red about it in a shuddering whisper. It becomes a little more bearable.

 

By some luck- because he'd resigned himself to the nightmares- Frank sleeps the rest of that night with no dreams. Most of it anyway. It's dark when he wakes. Then again, maybe he did dream again and just can't remember. He's wide awake, for some reason.

Lingers in the shower. Makes himself coffee and finds himself some breakfast with almost alarming dexterity. It's still dark outside but that's good. Comfortable.

So when he's sitting gazing out the window and sees the shape, in the alleyway behind his apartment, he knows it's real, even if it takes him some time to realise what he's looking at.   
When he does, it's like a sledgehammer and then a lie.   
Because he can't be there he can't be, he's dead he's…

Frank’s practical instincts kick in once he’s taken a couple of seconds to stare down into the alleyway with his mouth hanging open. Doesn’t allow himself long, because it’s cold outside, a layer of frozen snow on the ground, glittering in the street light, and he can see too much pale skin.  
  
Frank is oddly calm and rational when he sets down his mug. When he climbs down the fire escape with a knife stuffed into the back of his belt. Figures if reality is gonna throw him shit like this, he might as well take the moral high ground.   
  
Still, when he gets close enough to hear the ragged breathing that he hasn't heard enough for it to be familiar and still is anyway, he feels cast off from the world. It's too strange to be the truth, but here it is. The facts, before his eyes.   
  
Red is really here. Barefoot, bandaged, covered in a set of half faded lumps and bruises that have even Frank wincing. He’s hardly dressed, hugging himself and shivering so badly he's barely keeping upright.   
  
Frank expects him to say his name, when he gets close enough to find himself reaching out to steady the stumbling, twitching man, who flinches when Frank's outstretched hand brushes his freezing, goose pimpled arm. He reels backwards, limping, and Frank follows slowly.   
"Hey, Red." He finds his voice as soft as he lets it get when he's talking to him. When he's speaking to nothing but the darkness. Figures he has to. Murdock’s eyes are intermittently closing and blinking open again as if startled awake by the cold.

Frank shrugs off his hoodie. Holds it out. Murdock is breathing too fast and he’s tilting his head in his usual way but he jumps when Frank speaks again, as if he didn’t know how close he was.  
“Come on. Come here. You’re gonna freeze.”  
Murdock opens his mouth to speak but he just lets out a single croak of a syllable. Cuts himself off before Frank can figure out what he was trying to say, if anything. There's something dislocated and animal about the noise. 

His beard has grown since the last time Frank saw him. The colour is washed right out of his skin by the streetlights. He looks like a ghost, if ghosts could freeze to death in the street.

Frank approaches even more slowly this time. “That’s it, c’mon. We’re not fighting this time. I’m kinda over it. ‘Specially as I wasn’t expecting to see you again.” He keeps talking, senses somehow that he should be updating Murdock on where he is. Something is off about him. Besides the fact that he’s clearly shocked out and assumed dead.

Murdock freezes as Frank eases the hoodie around his shoulders, then half pulls away as Frank puts his arm around him. The defensiveness is short lived. Murdock lets out a grunting exhale and abruptly sags towards him.

“Hey, hey…” Frank says but Murdock’s knees buckle. He clutches at Frank with weak fingers, limbs trembling as if the cold is going to shake him right apart. Frank grabs him around the chest, manages to persuade an arm around his shoulder and wraps his arm around Red’s waist. Doesn't want to carry him, he looks so beat up that it must be hurting, but by now all the strength has drained from his legs. Frank holds on, hoping he isn't dislodging fractured ribs or something, and begins to move, to drag him out of the alleyway.  
“Steady. There's an elevator through the main entrance.”

 

Even by the time they're up to Frank’s apartment, Murdock is somehow even more glazed. He's conscious enough to sit, blank and hunched over on Frank’s bunk. His face is tense but otherwise empty. He looks worse, in the light. His bruises have to be a few weeks old, Frank’s own considerable bruising has faded by now, but Frank can only assume something _bad_ happened to Murdock more recently than that, because his are almost as deep as Frank's were and still vivid. Half his face is puffy, his nose looks broken. Might be why he's struggling to speak, only he doesn't look as if he's listening, either.

Frank gives up trying to persuade him to lie down, so he just heaps more blankets around him and rubs at his back.

Tells him it's basic survival stuff. Still no idea if Murdock can understand him. His body is solid under all the shaking. More so than he remembers from the last time he carried him, to a rooftop to chain him up in an attempt to teach him an ill conceived lesson.

“You're heavier than I figured.” Frank says, just for the sake of making some noise. “When did you get so much bigger than me? Too much gym not enough street, huh?” He smiles, seeing and feeling that Murdock’s shivering has faded back to something a little less dangerous.

It's a relief, to see the blood coming back up to the surface of his skin. Frank won't say it out loud but he had feared how far gone he was. Doesn't know how long he was out there and it doesn't look like Murdock is up to telling him.

“Gonna check your pulse, ok?” Frank does so slowly and gently and this time Murdock doesn't flinch. He's glazed and unnaturally still, but his eyes are a little less wide now, at least. His pulse is steady and strong. He's ok. Miraculously on several levels, Murdock seems unlikely to drop dead.

Frank heats him some soup. Seems like the thing to do. Murdock’s brow furrows as Frank busies himself. His hand comes up to grip the blankets and he shifts just a little bit, as if to make himself comfortable.

Good. Any progress at all is good.

 

Frank entertains the idea of calling his friends. Abandons it quickly. It would feel like kicking him out when he came to him for refuge, if he just sent him off with Nelson or Karen. There has to be a reason Murdock came to him. Even if it was a mistake, Frank owes it to him to do what he can at least until he can establish why here's _here_ of all places.

The silence is making it all stretch and buckle. Murdock just sitting there like a ghost, face all glassy and distant. The sensation of unreality gets Frank’s own heart rate up. No. He's real he's solid, he carried him into the elevator and along the hall.

The soup is steaming by the time Murdock twitches all over as if stung.  
“Frank.” He whispers.  
“Fuck, Red.” Frank breathes out, all in a rush, turns off the heat so he can cross the room to kneel beside the bunk. “You can hear me?” Frank says clearly.  
“Yeah.” There's a break in Matt’s voice when he answers that Frank doesn't understand. Still, he's speaking. _Come on, Frank. You know what to do for a trauma patient. You know what_ you _need when_ you’re _like this._  
“Can I touch your shoulder?” Frank says, slowly, carefully.  
“Yeah.” Matt breathes. Frank does, lightly rests it there, now that he’s not desperately trying to rub warmth back into him. He’s having trouble using… whatever it is he uses to map his surroundings. That much, Frank has gathered. Grounding him is going to be tricky.  
“Can you feel that?”  
“Yeah.” Matt’s still vague, but he’s responding. Something to work with.  
“What am I doing?”  
“Your hand. Holding my shoulder.” Matt’s voice is still vague and unfocused.  
“Good, now breathe in and out, one deep breath each way.”

Matt’s face sinks into blankness again and Frank tightens his hand a little.  
“Matt. Listen to me. What can you feel? Right now, touching you, the immediate area around you.”  
“Uh… blankets.”  
“Good, that’s good, what else?”  
“Can I… smell cooking?” Matt asks quietly and Frank almost kicks himself that he didn’t go with smell first.  
“That’s right, hungry?”  
“Smells… good.” Murdock whispers. 

Frank rises to fetch the soup. Transfers it into a mug.  
Eating gives Matt focus. He’s about half way when he takes his first normal sounding breath in and out.  
“Feel a lot better.” He says, almost gruffly. “Thank you. For helping me.”  
“I’m just glad to see you alive.” Frank tells him honestly, and Matt blinks, head tilting in confusion at Frank’s words, but he doesn’t say anything, just keeps drinking the soup. 

Frank let's him finish drinking it before he asks. He has to know. Has to know if something is coming.  
“Do you know where you came from?”  
“N… not sure uh…” He heaves in a breath, as if he forgot to breathe for a moment there.  
“How did you get here?”  
“Don’t, don’t know I just...  Grew up here. I know my city even if I’m… even if I can’t…” His breathing is speeding up with that tell tale inevitability of panic that Frank knows all too well.  
“Hey. Hey. Stay with me, you’re ok.” Frank tells him.  
“What d’you know about it?” Matt half snarls the words, shoves Frank away, head twitching from side to side. Frank stares. Has never heard his voice so rough. That fact alone is _jarring_ , considering. Matt’s lips are pulled back from his canines, a desperate display of aggression given the circumstances.  
“Matthew.”  
“Don't- _don't_ call me that…” He's backing into the corner, panting hard. He's _angry._ It’s so much better than the nothingness of before that Frank can't feel anything but relief.  
“I know your ribs are fucked up by the way you're moving and you nearly froze to death out there, I know you came to me for a reason.” He doesn't mention the state of blank confusion he found him in. Frank feels strange. Like the space where he should be getting angry or frustrated with him is too full of relief that this man he barely knows is here, close enough to touch, that he isn’t _gone,_ though he's clearly damaged.

“I don't know why I came here.” Matt gasps out. Shakes his head. His eyes are wide and strained again.  
“Matt.” Says Frank softly. “Do you want me to call someone?”  
“No! N-no please I don't know what-- I don't know…” Matt jerks and bunches in on himself, recoiling from the idea.  
“Hey. Murdock. I ain't gonna kick you out. But. You have people who will wanna know you're here.”  
“What if they're better off without me?” Matt whispers. Suddenly still and breathless.

“Red.” Frank’s voice has gone low and he's speaking again without meaning to because Karen is _life_ _itself_ and the concept of rejecting that shakes Frank somewhere deep inside. He tried that once. The wound is still raw. It’s all jumbled up with Karen’s eyes, the slump in her shoulders, when she told Frank about Matt’s death. The _loss.  
_ “Karen cares about you, Matt.”  
“I can't.” Matt says, voice a little choked. “Can’t be what she _wants_ I’ll just, I’ll let her down again.”  
“Being her friend will be enough.” Frank tells him, almost urgent in his need for Matt to _understand_ so that he can ease all that loss and guilt in Karen’s eyes.  
“Yeah who are you to talk about friends?” Matt spits back at him and Frank freezes.

Frank expects it to come out now, Matt remembering what Frank is. Throwing it in his face, and why shouldn’t he? Murdock only gasps and falters.  
“Shit I'm sorry.” Matt hisses. “I'm sorry I know you… you're on your own a lot I shouldn't…” he trips over his words and sounds so damn miserable that Frank only sighs.  
“Worried you hurt my feelings, Red?” Frank smiles a bit, grateful Matt didn't go where Frank thought he was headed. “As it happens, I got some folks around me now, things are better. But I still ain't the kind of guy people really wanna socialise with, y’know.”

“She does.” Matt says. Frank snorts.  
“For all the good it does her.” He sighs. “She does miss you. So much.” Frank tells him quietly.  
“She tell you that?” Matt’s voice is pinched and sad.  
“She didn’t have to. She set me on track, yeah? Believing in me like she does. Think she felt like… after what happened to you. She needed me to know someone cared.”  
“Oh.” Matt’s gone all lax, head drooping. 

“Hey. You have to rest.” Frank tells him, forgot how close to danger Matt was only minutes ago. His skin is pale and ashy, even now he's warmed up, and there's bruise like dark patches under each eye. Murdock blinks, breathes hard, grips tightly to the blankets, then nods.

 

Murdock shuffles back to lean against the wall, rather than laying out on the mattress. Can't seem to unbunch his body.

“List five things you can hear.” Frank says, expecting Matt to react in angry defence. His head twitches instead.  
“Cab outside. Tv upstairs. Your heartbeat. Your… fridge is loud. There’s cats fighting in the alley out back.”  
“That’s your five.” Frank stays soft, made breathless by the fact that his own heartbeat is on the list. Matt looks a little more calm now.  
“You can hear my heartbeat.” Frank says, a statement rather than a question. Makes a note of it in his head. Matt shrugs minutely.  
“Yeah. Sorry.” Matt says.

Frank mulls that over for a moment.  
“Sorry?” He frowns. “Why’re you sorry?” Matt fidgets.  
“Could always hear it. Before. I could hear it _then_ , too.” He says, strained, turning his face away as if to hide it from Frank.  
“Yeah so? Not like you can switch it off, is it?”  
“No, I can’t switch it off.” Matt _almost_ chuckles.“What’s the range on that?” Frank can’t help but ask, he’s wondered for a while now, that part.  
“Right now about uh. Ten blocks or so? Hard to tell. Sometimes I just follow the direction of the noise and figure out the distance as I go.”  
“You born like this or…?”  
“Chemical accident when I was a kid. Same thing that blinded me.” He says it so casually that the words send an uncomfortable tingling through Frank’s stomach.  
“Jesus.” Frank whispers, whistling through his teeth. He considers, letting one hand drum idly against the other. Matt looks miserable. Frank can’t figure out why.  
“So, you hear all that? All the time? And parkour your way to the trouble?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Like uh. Like Superman.” Frank says thoughtfully. Stupid but the tone needed lightening. Matt makes a strange aborted snorting sound that isn’t quite a laugh.  
“What? I get crazy enough from what _I_ see and you’re getting a hundred times that, but you’re still a goddamn hero.” Frank shrugs and ignores the pang he gets at the word, called up in his memory printed in that newspaper.  
“I’m not, I’m not a hero.” Matt says, voice hollow.  
“I’m not gonna argue with you. Shit’s obvious.” Frank frowns at him stubbornly. 

“It’s invasive.” Matt mumbles. “I have an unfair advantage nobody knows about.”  
“What?” Frank stares at him.  
“Hearing people’s heartbeats. Can tell when people lie, sometimes. Private stuff.”  
“You didn’t do this to yourself!” Frank exclaims, thrown by the self hatred in Matt’s voice. “I mean... I’ve known plenty of people who can tell when people lie just by using their eyes.”  
“That’s not the point…”  
“Why not? Who the fuck has been telling you that you’re a bad person because fate made you into some kind of radar for everyone else’s problems?” Frank’s more pissed off than he even realised when he finishes speaking. Matt doesn’t seem rattled by the tone of his voice. He looks confused, sitting with his brow furrowed.

Matt sits in silence for a while.  
“You really don’t mind?” He says eventually.  
“It comes with all that other noisy shit and I’m supposed to hold it against you? Please. It doesn’t sound like an _unfair advantage_ to me. Sounds like that shit helps everyone _but_ you.” Frank says dismissively. “I mean it sounds… amazing. It’s amazing that you can do it. Just. This town comes with a lot of shit for you to sift through. Nobody deserves all that on them.” Means it too. He doesn’t need to know Matt’s pulse to feel his embarrassment. His ears are flushed bright red.  
“Oh.” 

“Is that… do people usually mind?”  
“Well… yeah. I think I’ve told… five people my whole life, three of those just recently, so my experience is limited…” Matt smiles a little sheepishly. He’s more focused than he’s been so far.  
“That’s gotta be lonely.” Frank doesn’t think much of it when he says it, it just seems obvious. Matt almost jumps, his eyes widen and he blinks, brow furrowing. He’s silent for some time.  
“It is.” He says eventually, as if he’s never really considered it.  
“Not that I think you _need_ to, I might not be the best judge but I don’t think you _morally_ gotta go around warning everyone or something. You don’t have to apologise for who you are.” His fingers continue to tap compulsively against the back of one hand. Matt’s hands twist themselves around the edge of the blanket. “But carrying all of that…” Frank continues. “Must be hard, alone.”

Matt sits very still for a moment. His shoulders seem less tense than when they started, at least.  
“Yeah.” He murmurs.

It's slow, but he does settle into sleep, sinking down into a heap in the nest of blankets. Frank’s back is propped up against the edge of the mattress, needing to stay close. There's a kind of instinct telling him that Murdock won't sleep for long, that he needs to be there when he wakes.

*

“I take it that when you said you weren’t going to try anything _reckless_ what you meant was you weren’t going to actually _shoot at me!”_ Karen hisses as viciously as she can muster when her body is so filled up with the thrill of it. Less _oxygen_ than she’d prefer, perhaps, but the adrenalin is more than making up for that.

Karen’s shoes are mercifully flat. In fact, they’re canvas, the closest thing she owns to sneakers. Trish implied a certain danger in her invitation.

Trish has been back with her mother for two weeks, it turns out, and it’s made her… well. Frustrated enough for the both of them to be sprinting away from shouts and gunfire down a damp and darkened alleyway. Trish laughs. It has a wild edge, feral almost.  
“This wasn’t exactly my _plan_ , lady.” She grits out, dodging left and jump-climbing a chain link fence. 

Karen stalls to a stop short and stares, because for a moment, her entire mind is obscured by the sight of Trish’s agile as hell thighs flipping right up into the air as she vaults the chain link.  
“How in the fuck--” She splutters.  
“Page!” Trish whispers, aghast. “Stop staring and get over here!”  
“Oh, right.” Karen stammers and throws herself at the fence. 

It isn’t the razor sharp display of practical athleticism that Trish showed, but Karen manages to scramble over the fence with only a couple of token scratches. Then Trish giggles, takes her hand, and they’re running the remaining distance to Karen’s car.

“Jesus _Christ.”_ Karen splutters, flooring the accelerator and pulling out of the alleyway. She checks her mirrors compulsively. “That did _not_ go as planned.”  
“Goons didn’t like finding us eavesdropping on their poker game huh?”  
“So much for that name.” Karen allows herself to sound a _little_ grumbly about it.  
“Nah, see, for that we have to break some laws I think.”  
“ _More_ than trespassing laws huh?” Karen says a little weakly, glancing to the side in time to see Trish’s face tense with excitement, a strange, electric smile curling the loose corners of her mouth.  
“We might be looking at the problem from the wrong _side.”  
_ “You want to hit the _businessmen?”  
_ “No, I want to break into their offices and hunt for evidence.” Trish grins. Karen indicates and turns a corner, scowling at the dashboard.  
“We might need a little _backup_ for that.” Karen winces at the thought.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank does his best to help an unstable Matt.

Frank sets down the case file he's been reading. Murdock’s breathing is beginning to catch and increase in speed.  
“Hey. It's just me. You’re in my apartment.” Frank explains calmly. “Found you in the snow.” Murdock nods after a second. 

“You need anything?” Frank asks him. Murdock seems preoccupied, turning his head and tensing as he does. It takes him a long time to respond.  
“S... shower?” He whispers.  
“Can you..?”  
“Yes!” Murdock snaps. “I can, I can do it.” He stumbles up from the bed, yanking the blankets away.  
“I'll get you a towel. Ten steps to the right there's a door. Got some spare sweats somewhere…” Frank rambles. Murdock takes a bit but he does find it. Frank presses the clothes and towel against his chest and Murdock gathers them up in his hands.  
“Thanks.” He murmurs, almost grudging.  
“Right is heat, left is power. Tell me if you need anything.”  
“Right.”  
“I'll help you redress whatever's going on under the bandages, after.”  
“Don't patronise--”  
“Ain't patronising you Murdock. Just being hospitable, alright?” Frank keeps his voice firm, doesn't raise it but doesn't back down either. Knows somehow that it's what he needs. Murdock stands very still for a long moment before he thanks him and quickly retreats behind the locked door.

Murdock looks almost sheepish when he emerges again, after.  
“I got uh…” he motions to his chest, pauses and physically rests a hand there. Frank saw all of it for a moment. Two jagged slashes across his scarred, bruised chest, stitched up but vivid. “Healing but they’re still…”  
“Sure, I can do that.” On impulse Frank rises, crosses the little room and offers his arm, bumps it against his knuckles. Murdock’s hand is hesitant as it curls around Frank’s elbow. He’s struck by that little bit of contact for a moment. Warm fingers against his bare arm, then he makes himself move.

Frank sits him down and sorts it all out with a firm, steady pace. Doesn’t ask how he got it. Is it his imagination or is Murdock leaning into his hands a little bit? Doesn’t think about the healed internal injuries in his own chest that still send shooting pains across his abdomen if he isn’t careful. Silence feels wrong, but he can’t find anything to say until he’s fastening off the bandages.

“Where’ve you been?” Frank has to ask. Doesn’t know what they’re dealing with here. If there’s something to fight, if something is  _ coming,  _ Frank has to know. Murdock stiffens up, shoulders squaring defensively. Doesn’t move at all, but his breathing speeds up again, just like it did when he’d just come around from his trance or whatever it was.  
“Hey. It’s alright.” Frank says quickly.  
“Don’t know.” Murdock’s voice is tight. “Don’t…” His brow furrows. “Thought I died. Down there. We didn't get out. And then… I was in a bed and…”  
“Midland circle?” Frank says. “I read about it. So you’ve… been somewhere since then? Someone got you out and kept you somewhere?” He looks at Matt’s injuries again, gut tightening. Someone kept him somewhere and did this to him, maybe while he was out of it. Maybe he’s out of it  _ because  _ someone did this to him. Frank’s wrists itch.  
“They were healing me.” Matt whispers. Like he’s making  _ excuses _ .

“Matt did they do this to you?” Frank says, voice flatter than he’d like.  
“What?” Matt says, brow furrowing.  
“Someone’s beaten you half to hell.” Frank says, can’t help it coming out blunt. “Did these people who kept you, were they hurting you?”  
“What? No! N-no Frank this is from, this is from the _circle_ this is how they found me..”  
“Hey, hey you're saying this is all… Matt you, all of that was months ago something else must have…”  
“No no it was _days_ Frank, I think I’m not, I was... Sister… Maggie was there and… they were kind to me but I… they did something to me and... I couldn’t…” Just like that, Matt seems to hit the end of the tracks. He runs out of breath, drops his head into his his hands and shakes and shakes and Frank has to move in a little closer, take his upper arms in his hands.  
“Hey, hey… shouldn't be questioning you like this.” Didn’t realise how close to the edge he was. Frank can deal with whatever comes. Murdock staying calm is more important than being prepared right now.

Matt’s face is slack and reeling and his breaths are coming in rapid, pained little puffs. Frank’s heart feels as if it’s going to wrench out of his chest. He’s seen Matt stare him down in the face of the worst version of himself, but Matt’s too messed up right now to keep the world back on his own. Maybe he can manage it with some help. Frank goes back to grounding him.  
“Concentrate on your feet, on the ground. Push them against it if it helps.”  
“Yeah.” Matt murmurs, and Frank shuffles himself, spurred on with the relief that Matt is  __ responding.  
“Tell me what you can hear. List four things.” Frank continues, keeping his voice steady. Matt’s breathing levels a little as he tilts his head back and forth in response. His voice is strained and breathless but he’s focussed enough to be speaking and that is something.  
“Bike a block away, loud. Really annoying kid’s cartoon downstairs. Snoring above. Three people singing to… classical radio in the apartment down the hall.”  
“Glad someone’s having fun round here.” Frank smiles.

It passes quickly, considering. Frank holds onto him through it. Matt’s hand comes up when his breath is shuddering less painfully, fastens itself on Frank’s hand, sweaty but firm. Matt is still trembling but his breathing levels out. Frank’s seen a lot worse.  _ Had _ a lot worse.  
“You good?” Frank asks him.  
“Yeah. Sorry.” Matt murmurs tightly. Frank grips his shoulder and sighs.

“Don't apologise for this. Can I…” Frank reaches, very lightly touches the worst of the bruising, to one side under the bandages. Murdock nods.  
Gingerly, Frank takes the opportunity to check out his ribs. They're hot and swollen under the largest bruise, but nothing feels out of place.  
“You're gonna be ok.” He tells him. “It's not so bad.”

Matt sits for a long time.

Frank just waits, seems like Murdock might have something to say.

When he does speak, it's in a hoarse whisper.  
“You…” Murdock raises his head slowly. “Called me Matt.”  
“Yeah… uh… heard Nelson call you that a few times, figured… you go by that…” Frank fidgets, made strangely self conscious. Doesn’t know why, until…  
“No, not just now… you… were there, when I was…” Murdock cuts himself off with a barely contained sound, like a whimper of panic, turns his head away and Frank tightens his grip.  
“You heard me?” His body has stilled automatically, needing to stay steady for Murdock because he's still shaking and starting to breathe too fast again, twitching with it. “You're safe here.” Frank murmurs. Drops the line of questioning again because it's very much not helping. Scolds himself for drifting in that direction again.

Murdock doesn't seem able to speak, too wound up with fear and whatever else. Eventually he sags towards Frank like he can't help it. A gradual collapse, hands losing grip on the chair and moving to clutch at Frank’s shirt to steady himself. Murdock balls up the fabric at Frank’s shoulder, stretching it in his fist. His face droops close enough for Frank to feel his breath against his neck. The shuddering begins to fade.

“That’s it just relax you're safe here, safe with me.” It’s nonsense really, like he’s trying to sooth a baby, just talking for the sake of getting a calm sound out there. It’s not like he isn’t used to talking to him, though not with his hands clinging to him for dear life. Frank deliberately shuts off thinking about it too much. Gives Murdock what he needs and doesn't challenge it.

Murdock’s breathing gets uneven again. Huffs in, and blows out like he's struggling to articulate. When he does speak his voice is so quiet, Frank almost wants to lean his ear closer to better catch what he's saying.  
“Lisa… used to laugh at you when you lifted heavy stuff ‘cause you made a face like a gnome she said.” Matt’s voice is terribly flat with fear and god knows what else but Frank can barely hear that past the words.  
“Murdock…” Frank can hardly get the breath in to whisper.  
“You don't much believe in god or heaven or any of it anymore but you still tell them you love them sometimes, just so if you're wrong they know you didn't forget.”  
“D-don't--”  
“Sometimes you feel so much like a monster you want to claw your own skin off.” Matt’s voice wobbles at that one, breath sounding raw and gasping.  
“Matt…” Frank’s heart pounds, every word like a gutpunch.  
“You don't like dislocating people’s bones ‘cause you feel it for hours, like they're popping out under your skin too.”  
“Please…” The feeling is leaving Frank’s legs. He can only cling to Matt. It's all he can do not to topple backwards.  
“Sometimes you see her face behind your eyes when you're lying in bed, for a second you forget and you're just confused, just, just don't know why she's not there with you…”  
“Stop!” Frank shouts it, doesn't mean to, slips out in defence, like raising arms to block against a higher weight class. Matt does stop. Cuts himself off there. Doesn't move.

Neither of them move.

Just sit locked together by nervous hands, unsteady lungs huffing hot, wet air at the skin of the other.

Murdock’s eyes are pink and damp and blinking hard over and over.

“M’sorry.” Frank says after a while. Murdock’s head twists in confusion.  
“ _ You’re _ sorry..?”  
“Shouldn't have shouted like that it’s only what I told you I said it…” he shakes his head. “Anyways. Musta… kept you round here.”  
“Huh?” Matt sounds detached again. Vague.  
“They musta kept you close enough to hear me. I talked. To you but… not really. You were dead. I thought you were. We all did. I had to… to talk to someone.” Frank is rambling again. Excuses tumbling out of him like he can somehow stem the bleeding from this open wound Matt has exposed, just by regurgitating his own words back at him.

“Didn't think it was real.” Matt murmurs. Frank makes himself look at his face. Matt is so lost and confused he has to reach out. Finds his hand curling naturally around the back of his neck. Their foreheads settle together like they were always meant to. Like they fit.  
“I didn't either.” Is all Frank can think to say.

“I heard you say…”  
“Red, Red please I didn’t think anyone could hear me--” Frank chokes out, tries to draw away, breaking their heads apart, but Matt clings on, fingers suddenly strong as iron. His head is down, but his expression is intense, when Frank makes himself see it.  
“No, before. Heard you say you felt like you could talk to me.”  
“Oh.” Frank stares, voice hushed. “I… didn’t mean for you to hear that either.” He admits.  
“Glad I did.” Murdock says.

For a long time they sit, holding onto each other, and then Murdock heaves in a long breath to speak.  
“I was in a bad place, when I heard you. I was trying to give it all up but… it wasn't so easy. I was hurting and just… walking. Didn't know you were there until you said  _ Red _ and then… listening to you, knowing I wasn't alone… I can't thank you enough for that. I was so lost, Frank.” He finishes, rearranges his hold on Frank so that it's more of an embrace, really. As if he has no plans to let go for some time.  
“Oh.” Frank whispers. Murdock is tensing up a little so Frank reaches out to touch the back of his neck again. A lot of closeness, sure, but he senses that Murdock needs it, somehow.

Tells himself it's necessary.

Refuses to think about the way he finds himself lingering against Matt’s warm skin, the unknotting in his chest, like he's finally free. Or like he's slowly twisting open a tourniquet.

Refuses to let that scare him, of all things.

“I'm glad it helped. Can't take credit for it though. Did it cause I had to let it out.” Frank tells him. Strokes absently at the back of Matt’s hair, doesn't even realise what he's doing until Matt rolls his head against his hand and lets out a little sigh.

This is weird.

Is this weird?

Even if it is, it’s private. If it helps Matt it helps. Doesn't need to be more complicated than that.  
“I can't tell them yet.” Matt murmurs suddenly.  
“Hey. Told you. I'm not gonna kick you out.” Frank rubs the back of Matt’s neck. His head goes kind of lax on his neck and he nods a couple times.  
“Just not ready. They'll be… I don't know…” he twitches.  
“Don't have to explain yourself to me.” Frank says. “Hey. You’re exhausted, c’mon.” He leads him back to bed.  
“You are gonna be ok.” He tells him. “You're not alone.” He turns away and is halfway across the room when Matt speaks.  
“Like you were.” He says it matter-of-factly, but it makes Frank pause, readjust for a moment.  
“Like I was.” He agrees.

***

Frank doesn’t want to leave Matt all day, but he really does need the bed rest. He makes his excuses for Friday night drinks, goes straight home to find Matt sat on the windowsill, head tilted towards the glass.  
“Hey Frank.” Matt says without turning to him, voice almost smug.  
“Hey, you’re up.” Frank says, amused by Matt’s unsubtle effort to prove that he can do it. 

“Going to the store.” Frank dumps his stuff in the corner, yanks at his shirt on the way to the bathroom.  
“Can I come?” Matt stands. Frank turns in time to see him straighten his shirt, stand up straight. He gives him a long assessing look. He’s got more colour in his face.  
“Sure. I got some dark glasses somewhere…” Frank fumbles about in his tiny excuse for a wardrobe and hands a pair, gruffly, to Matt.  
“Just y’know, picked ‘em up from a dollar store to hide my face a while back…” this feeling is close enough to _ flustered _ that Frank has to cut himself off in dismay.  
“Thanks.” Matt feels them, smiles. His eyes crinkle up when he does that. It's like his light has come back a little.

Matt is extremely polite when he takes Frank’s elbow in his hand. They leave the apartment, take the elevator, and join the flow of evening pedestrians.

“You ever think about getting a dog?” Matt says. Frank glances at him, small talk sounding strangely alien from him and decides to roll with it.  
“Last time I got a dog it wasn’t so lucky for the dog.” Frank shrugs.  
“Maybe, but I’m not hell bent on sending you to jail these days.” Matt’s voice sounds more thin than light.  
“I don’t blame you for that you know.” Frank says. Matt is silent for a moment.  
“Wouldn’t blame you if you did.” Matt says. Frank doesn’t really know what to say to that.

They don’t speak about anything in particular. Frank talks about work just to fill the silence and Matt opens up, slowly, with a charming sort of shyness considering they were holding tightly to each other with trembling hands less than twelve hours ago. It does feel strange, having a normal conversation with Matt. There’s a charm to him that Frank wasn’t expecting. Something about the way he speaks that puts Frank at ease.

“The closest I ever came to doing manual labour was lugging case files up the stairs one time the elevator broke down and Landman and Zack.” Matt shrugs, when Frank describes a particularly intense work day. Frank winces.  
“They had the blind guy lugging boxes?” He grimaces. Matt chuckles.  
“Thought you were gonna tease me for complaining about some boxes of paper while you’re knocking down walls nine to five.” Matt grins. Frank makes a  _ pshh _ noise and waves his free hand.  
“You can carry  _ me _ so a few boxes ain’t gonna break your back.” He says with mock dismissal, and then smiles. “Seriously though if you weren’t  _ you, _ how were you s’posed to pull that off?”  
“Lawyers are like sharks ok you can’t admit weakness, sink or swim. Or in this case, follow Foggy very closely.” At the mention of Foggy, Matt seems to forget how to draw a breath inwards, just for a moment. Frank pretends not to notice.  
“That’s pretty shit.” Frank says, not so gently that it comes off patronising. “People are assholes huh. I mean, lawyers are kinda known for bein’ assholes, so…” he grins and nudges Matt’s shoulder.  
“Yeah.” Matt smiles. “Should have known better.”

Matt slips away from Frank once they get to the store. His head turns like he’s rediscovering how to read the world around him.  
“I’m ok. Just uh. Grab what you need I just. Need a moment.”

He’s stable enough, if quiet on the walk back to Frank’s apartment. He falls asleep pretty quickly, Frank just hopes he hasn’t overdone it, after all he has no idea what he’s been through, really. Knows even less than Matt himself and that’s not a lot.

*

“Karen.” Matt half yells half chokes, bolting upright in the bed. The most movement he's made in hours.  
“What?”  
“Don't act like you don't know!” Matt scrambles backwards, head turning, but the apartment is one room and a bathroom and there isn't anywhere to hide.  
“Page is here?”  
“You  _ know _ you called her you must have done you-- y-you--” he's gasping too hard to speak.  
“Matt. Listen to me. You woulda heard me.”  
“I was sleeping--”  
“I swear. I didn't call her. Listen. You know I'm not lying, listen.” He grabs Matt’s hand on impulse. presses it to his chest. “I didn't call her. I didn't contact her. I told her my address weeks ago in case she ever needed it I didn't think she'd come here. You can trust me.” Frank says and Matt pauses but he nods a bit, almost absently.

“She's downstairs.” Matt says. “Still outside. Looking at apartment numbers.”  
“Red. You listen to me. You once told me the reason you don't kill people is so they get a chance to be better, try again.”  
“What do you care you think I’m pathetic, what did you call me?  _ Half measure _ …” Matt’s showing anger through the panic now and Frank is heartened by that, somehow. Means he's fighting.  
“I don’t disrespect you, Red.”  
Matt’s brow furrows with confusion. It shakes him out of the panic a bit, replacing it with sheer frustration.  
“You chained me to a roof and yelled at me over it for three hours and then tried to make me commit  _ murder _ , how can you  _ say _ \--”  
“Listen ok that's uh…” Frank shoves a hand through his hair.

_ Idiot. _

Murdock shoves himself half upright, glares approximately in Frank’s direction. Frank is suddenly acutely thankful that he never got the urge to unmask him, that night. Murdock’s sightless eyes full of all of this rage and disdain wouldn't have stopped him, but he hardly needs the memories of that night made any more vivid.

“What, Frank?” Matt demands, voice loud and sharp and ringing.  
“Ever think maybe I’ve changed since that night, Murdock?” Frank huffs a rough breath in and out. “Nobody should operate like I do. No one should be me. Least of all you.”

“What's that supposed to mean…” Matt’s voice still hard and loud but there's another edge to it now. He's unsure. Frank doesn't really want him to delve too closely to what he said,  _ he’s _ not even sure what he means himself, so he pushes on. Pulls from that night, if they must go there. “Listen, Matt. My point is, how'd you justify letting those scumbags get another chance when you won't give that to  _ yourself _ . I don't know what you think you did that's not worth bein’ good enough to  _ live _ .” He's holding both his shoulders though he doesn't remember grabbing hold of him.

It's so silent Frank’s ears almost ring with it. Matt just sits panting, stiff and shaky under Frank’s hands.  
“It's… not… it's not about that.” Matt croaks, barely loud enough to hear.  
“it’s not?” Frank says gently. “You gotta forgive yourself. Everything ain't your fault.”  
“She’ll hate me she’ll…”  
“Matt, I…” There's a knock on the door.

“Oh. Uh, hey.” Frank feigns surprise kinda badly, but Karen has no reason to be suspicious and even her sharp eyes don't see it.  
“You're in!” She smiles a bit, even such a little one lighting up her whole face. She’s like light in this dark space that Matt and Frank have settled around themselves. Reminds him of the light he misses so much in Matt.  
“Uh, yeah I just woke up.”  
“You don't look so rested.” She looks sad rather than accusatory. Karen moves as if to hint she's looking to he invited in. Frank swings the door just a little more closed.  
“Listen I have to shower can I meet you in a diner or…”  
“Frank you don't have to hide from me, whatever you have in there you're not going to shock...”  
“Karen.” Matt croaks from the darkness.  
“...me…” Karen trails off numbly.  
“Think you'd better come inside.” Frank says.

Karen moves into the room slowly, small jerky steps, her heels clicking against the floorboards. Her bag slips from her hands as she sees him. Lands on the ground with a thud. Her hand jump up to clasp over her mouth. A wordless sound slips out of her, a sob of pent up emotion, muffled by her fingers, and she's a blur as she dives to the bed and throws her arms around him. Matt makes a breaking sound, wraps his arms around her, balling up her cardigan in his hands, breath shuddering.

“God, god you're alive.” Karen clings to him, voice wavering. “Where've you been? What happened to you… w-why are you  _ here? _ ” Matt doesn't answer, just breathes hard and holds tightly to her. Makes an indistinct noise like he’s trying to speak but has to give up, shaking his head. He's crying, Frank sees now. Really crying. Not fighting it back or too numb to get there. Tears rolling down his face.

“He came to me last night.” Frank says softly. “I've been doing what I can.”  
“Why didn't you tell me…” Karen sounds like she's trying to be angry but can't make it there.  
“He asked me not to.” Frank says. Won't go into more detail than that. It's for Matt to tell or Karen to figure out.

Karen releases Matt and persuades him to do the same, draws back to hold him at arm’s length. His head is bowed and a little turned away from her, shoulders up. Frank doesn't need super senses to feel the shame rolling off him in waves. Karen brushes his hair gently out of his face.  
“Foggy and I… Matt we miss you. We miss you so much. Foggy… I've never seen him like this. It's like his heart’s broken. He blames himself. But I had this hope… I knew you weren't dead.”  
“Between us we’re gonna give you a complex.” Frank sometimes feels like his mouth is not his own when Karen is around. Like his old self sneaks back in there a little, made more morbid but still recognisable. Surprisingly, Karen cracks a little smile, before Frank has time to internally kick his own ass.

“Your apartment is still there. Foggy had it fixed up, earthquake damage, you know.” Matt makes a strangled pained sound.  
“Toldja, Red. People who care.” Frank says gently. 

There's an ache in his chest.

Curses himself.

Red deserves people around him who love him and he can't feel like he’s losing out, it's not right.

Red hasn't spoken for a while.

His hands are clasped on the blankets now they're not gripped compulsively to Karen’s shirt. They're shaking.

His breathing is just a little bit shallow. Just a touch faster than Frank now knows to be natural.  
“Red?” Frank forgets himself, moves to sit beside him on the bed, grabs his hand. “Matt. C’mon. Feet on the ground.” He says, slow and steady and soft. “You're safe here.” 

He holds his hand, talking bullshit, until his fingers have stopped trembling. Slowly, Matt’s other hand comes up to hold onto Frank’s arm.  
“That's it, Red. Come back.” Frank murmurs. Matt shudders.

No…” Matt hisses, shakes his head. “No, Karen, no he… not Foggy’s fault you have to tell him…” he gasps out, like he only just heard her say it.  
“I have been.” She says quietly. “He has to hear it from you.” Then she dips her head to look at his eyes, his face. It strikes Frank then, that for someone who can’t see eyes and faces, Matt has developed a reliable compulsion to turn away and hide himself.

“I'm sorry, I'm probably being a bit much. Only thing that matters is you're alive. I knew it.  _ I knew it. _ ” Karen’s voice cracks.  
“Karen I need, n-need to tell him, I'm alive if it's hurting him I have to…” Matt’s breathing is choppy and difficult. Frank doesn't notice he's running his thumb against the back of Matt’s hand until he gets the sense that Karen is watching him with furrowed eyebrows

Maybe it's because Matt is responding to it, gripping Frank’s hand in return to steady himself, speaking in full sentences, that Karen doesn't comment.

***

It's only some kind of grim resolve that gets Matt up, Frank can see it and it doesn't do anything to ease the knot of worry that's been growing inside his chest since he found Matt shivering on the sidewalk.

Matt doesn't seem any less exhausted, not to Frank, though he's visibly trying to hide it now.

Matt takes Frank’s arm without Frank needing to offer. That does something to Frank’s insides that he can't figure out. Matt maybe holds on a little more tightly than he needs to, as they move into the street and then make their way to his apartment. Frank knows the way.

Matt worries the edge of his shirt with his free hand once they get to the building, an unconscious nervous motion. Frank feels as if he’s somehow stuck in tune with Matt’s body. Every nervous mannerism is  _ too _ close. All to vivid, resonating against Frank’s memories of that familiar detachment, to focusing back to find his hands shaking and not knowing how long they’ve been doing that.

Karen gave them a key and Frank lets Matt unlock it, though his hands shake so much it takes him a while. Frank pretends not to notice. When the door swings open, Matt just stands ther _ e. _

“Matt.” Frank prompts him at a murmur.  
“M’ok.” He says quickly, blows a breath in and out.  
“Sure? We can…”  
“No, no Foggy’ll be here soon I gotta do it.” he steels himself and pushes into the hallway.

Frank takes a seat and let's Matt explore the space. Touch the patched cracks in the brickwork. The bed has sheets on it. Matt feels them.  
“Silk.” He mutters. “Shit, Fog.” Frank doesn't comment.

Matt has to sit down kind of heavily after a while, on the couch. He's found a cane in his room and he's holding it. His posture is better now it's in his hand.  
“Smells of him.” He says very quietly. Frank's not sure he meant to say it out loud, so he stays quiet.

Frank gets him talking again, about the coffee machine that looks at odds with the kitchen, the decor that wouldn’t look out of place in a hipster hangout cafe. It isn’t long before Matt looks more like he did in that courtroom. More like  _ himself,  _ Frank supposes, though his rough and ready Daredevil side is the more familiar to Frank. This is the Matt that Karen and Nelson know. The side that has come about in defence of people like whatever asshole made a blind intern carry boxes up stairs. The man he met that day in the hospital, not the one from the rooftop.

“Ok. I'm gonna make a move.” Frank stands and takes a few steps towards the front door.  
“Wait, wait Frank.” Matt says, rises to follow a couple of steps after him. “I uh, would you… stay. For a little bit longer. I'll… make you coffee you don't have to leave yet.” He fidgets, face bunching with the shame of what he's asking. He’s more  _ Matt  _ for a moment. The facade drops.  
“Sure, Red.” Frank says softly, taken aback. “But uh. Nelson ain't gonna be so happy to see me.”  
“I just uh. I'd prefer it if, if you were here.” Matt stumbles over his words and Frank can hear what he isn't saying. That Frank can get him to come back. That if he leaves and Matt loses it in front of his friends, he can't be sure he’ll know how to stop the panic. “But you've done a lot so. Don't feel you have to.” He's gone all stiff and professional again, and Frank hates it enough to move back across the room and take both of his upper arms in his hands.  
“Matt. It's fine.” He says gently. “Just didn't wanna make it awkward for you, I'm not the most… calming influence for most people.”  
“You are for me.” Matt says, tries to smile, softened again, leaning into his hands.  
“Listen, Red. Sit down. I'll make the coffee.”

 

Foggy half runs into the apartment, Karen trailing behind.

He’s wordless, crumples the moment they catch each other in an embrace. They hold onto each other like two drowning men. Frank almost wants to point out that Matt’s ribs are broken and to be careful, but Matt’s knuckles are white he's gripping to Foggy so hard. Frank just leaves them to it and makes the coffee.

When they break apart, Foggy is still crying. Matt is half supporting him by the shoulder.  
“Fog…” Matt says, disbelieving, and he's still speaking which makes it all a little better.  
“You saved us, Matt you saved us and I kept saying it to myself but it didn't make it better.”  
“Missed you, I missed you so much.”

“Hey, Frank.” Karen says, pointedly, and Foggy’s eyes go a little wide.  
“Coffee, Nelson?” Frank says, polite, only not calling him _councillor_ out of habit by the skin of his teeth.  
“The Punisher is making coffee.” Foggy murmurs.  
“Yeah.” Matt says with a little laugh, tears still in his eyes. “It's ok Fog.”  
“Is it?” Foggy says, wide-eyed, asking Karen of all people. Frank manages not to snort. Both of them get her so wrong. Then again, she's pretty damn good at hiding that side of herself. Can't undersell her ability to keep secrets.  
“Yeah, Foggy.” She says.

Karen moves to Matt’s kitchen and helps Frank with the cups, like it's completely ordinary. Frank appreciates it more than he’d ever let her know. He does quietly let his shoulder nudge her’s though, when she happens to get close enough. Karen smiles at him.

Nelson relaxes after that. They even sit and drink their coffee, Karen and Foggy gently updating Matt on what he’s missed. The concept of how much time has passed rattles him, Frank can see it in the way his fingers close around the arm of the couch, clenched around the roll of leather there, nails digging into it. If the other two see it, they don’t let on.

But, Matt does relax. Frank watches him, knowing that the steadier Matt gets, the less he needs him there.

Frank makes his excuses in an awkward gruff spattering of syllables. Karen hugs him, less desperate, more thankful. Matt stands as he moves away from Karen, grips Frank’s arm, brief, but the importance of it is clear enough. Frank touches his arm.  
“No trouble, yeah? Take care.” He tells him.

As he leaves, he can hear the conversation pick up again and he feels settled by it. Matt is back. He’s going to be ok.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trish and Karen share a moment. Matt tries to adjust. Frank faces a new challenge.  
> Smut! And then a lot of talking.

Karen’s tiny apartment doesn’t have a spare room. She does try her best to convince Trish to sleep in her bed, take the couch for herself. Trish doesn’t have it, so when Karen returns, still choked with relief that Matt is safely tucked up in his own bed, safe and warm and whole, she has to pass her where she’s sleeping on the couch and inevitably wakes her.  
“Karen?” She slurs.  
“Yeah. Sorry. Go back to sleep.”  
“S’ok, I couldn’t sleep properly anyway. Too excited.”  
“You made a breakthrough?” Karen turns to ask, halfway to her bedroom. Knows it’s that, instinctively.

Trish sits up and yawns, stretches like a cat.  
“Uh huh.”  
“C’mon what did you get?” Karen moves toward her. Trish squints.  
“Have you been crying?” Karen’s breath escapes in a tight huff and she’s smiling without meaning to.  
“Matt’s alive.” Karen breathes it, a disbelieving sob edging her voice. She feels her hands go to her mouth numbly. She presses them there and shuts her eyes. Trish stumbles upright and moves across the room to her. She takes Karen’s wrists in her hands. When Karen makes herself look at Trish’s face, her eyes are round and intense.  
“Hey. Matt? Matt  _ Murdock _ ?” Karen can only nod, pressing her palms against her mouth to stop herself from whimpering.

Trish steers her to the couch and shoves the comforter out of the way to make room. She sits them down and rubs her palms firmly against Karen’s arms.  
“How?”  


“I don’t know.  _ He  _ doesn’t know. He’s  _ alive  _ Trish I didn’t… I didn’t lose him I didn’t push him away and… he didn’t  _ die _ I have another chance…” Trish wraps her up and let’s her cry. Karen clings to her.

Everything she’d been keeping inside in front of Matt, Frank and Foggy gushes out of her. She holds onto Trish and lets the relief release itself. A pressure she hadn’t realised she’d been carrying.

Karen doesn’t cry for long, but she cries deeply enough that she feels almost detoxed, afterward. As if a poison has been ejected from her system.

She tells Trish about their reunion. Trish holds onto her wrist for the whole thing, thumb stroking up and down. It centres her. When she’s finished, she smiles and it feels uncomplicated for the first time in years. This is a good thing. For once, only good.  
“Ok, tell me what you found.” Karen says, kicking off her shoes and shifting to tuck one foot under herself, pointing herself eagerly at Trish.  
“I have a time and place for a  _ meeting _ .” Her smile is dangerous. Sharp. “We don’t have to break in and hope to find evidence. We can break in and  _ witness  _ the key players  _ meeting _ .”

Karen leans into her warmth- or heat, it’s more  _ heat _ \- and all she can see are her eyes, fierce and excited.   
“We can get them, Karen.” Trish murmurs. “We can  _ do this _ together, we can get everything we need from this meeting to  _ go public _ —“ Karen’s heart seems to glow bright white and it feels as if she’s falling rather than simply moving, closes the space between she and Trish and presses her lips against her’s, firm and daring.   
  
Trish immediately wraps her arms around Karen, pulling her tight against her body, blazing heat as Karen clings on for dear life. She kisses her, opens her mouth and moans and tilts her head. Karen pushes back with an uncontrollable sense of urgency. She tightens her hands and gasps, fingers tightening on Trish’s firm biceps, lips hot and firm. Karen tangles a hand in her hair and suddenly, just like that, Trish breaks away as if startled.   
“What about Frank Castle?” She blurts, breath choppy and strangely hushed.   
“What?” Karen tilts herself further than a breath away, so that she can properly scrutinise the expression on Trish’s face. She looks lost, eyes distant and searching, mouth hanging open and twitching slightly as if she’s searching for words.   
“I... I don’t know...” Trish says, eyes a million miles away. Karen reaches to take hold of both her shoulders and ducks her head in an attempt to tether her searching, confused gaze. Trish’s hands comes up to hold Karen’s arms, as if unsure about the contact.   
“Trish.” Karen swallows and takes a breath. “I just really... thought you were into that, and I, if you weren’t that’s, just tell me it’s fine, but if you  _ were _ and there’s something... you want to talk about...” Karen trails off because Trish raises her head a little and her eyes lock to her’s, sudden and intense. Karen smiles at her encouragingly.   
“I...” Trish’s brow is furrowed, maybe she really and truly didn’t know what she meant when the words tumbled out of her. She’s trying to puzzle it out herself.   
  
“You two… you have a  _ thing,  _ right?” She shakes her head and drops it breathlessly. Karen reaches to cup her face and gently coaxes her face up to meet her own, carefully persuades Trish’s eyes to meet her gaze again.   
“Trish.” Karen says softly. “It absolutely isn’t like that.  _ We _ aren’t like that. Frank is… when he cares about someone he’s  _ selfless _ with that, y’know? And… the fight takes pieces of him with it and he knows that well enough to stay away from it as best he can. Thinking about me like that would make that harder for him, I think.” Karen shifts and takes Trish’s face in both of her hands. Trish’s breath catches. She brings up her own hands to rest on Karen’s, breath shuddering and unsure.   
“You’re strong, Trish, you’re so strong ok? And I don’t  _ need _ your protection, or his, or anyone’s. I don’t need you to be some… knight in armour for me..” Thinks of Frank, in the pieces he beat himself into as he fought to get to her when Louis dragged her to the basement. Of Matt, tired and bloody, before she had any idea how he got to be that way.

Trish stares at her for several seconds.  
“Yeah.” Trish swallows and nods. “Shit what’s wrong with me?” Trish shakes her head and laughs nervously. “I assumed there was something there, or had been… but I didn’t mean…” she rubs her forehead with her hands.  
“Hey it’s ok.” Karen smiles. “I guess…” she tucks a strand of hair compulsively behind her ear. Realises for the first time that her face is hot and flushed, tilted toward Trish. “I guess I didn’t expect you to… creep up on me like this, either, it’s all kinda sideways right now…”

Karen’s eyelids droop closed, full of a warm fuzzing sensation of excitement, and she leans to press their lips together before she can get tangled up in anything else.

Trish responds immediately, presses herself against Karen, wraps her arms around her neck.

Trish is surprisingly solid, small as she seems, heavier than Karen expects. Karen gasps as she slides herself closer to Karen, onto her lap.

She’s a weight, a warm pressure, spreading across Karen’s thighs as Trish slowly presses Karen back against the cushions, crawling forward from her seat, crowding her backwards with her arms propped on either side of her thighs..

Trish’s head bends into her space. Karen can feel her breath, excited and quick, hot and damp against her neck. She kisses there first, then pushes her tongue against her pulse, licking and mouthing there. Gentle and feral all at once. Karen slides both hands into Trish’s pillow-tangled hair and tries not to moan. She doesn’t want to give into that just yet. Trish is driving her wild just from this. Trish shifts to grip her shoulder with one arm, rubs her palm up and down and then Karen needs to get out of her clothes.

It’s a confused scramble of breathless laughter and pulling, Karen not knowing half of the time who’s clothing she’s tugging at. Trish was only wearing pajama shorts and a shirt and she’s topless in seconds. Karen is glad she got her down to her underwear before showing her the tight breasts, rising and falling rapidly with excitement.

Karen shifts herself into a more upright sitting position and stares. Reaches with a slow reverence that makes Trish growl out a feral-sounding laugh, grab her wrists and pull both hands close against her skin.

Karen gasps at the sensation of Trish’s warm, firm breasts, squeezing with her fingers and feeling how deceptively muscular she is. She wonders if she could lift Karen off the ground. Push her back against a wall and…  
“They’re only my tits.” Trish chuckles, then she’s pouncing at Karen with a fluid, almost ethereal speed and athleticism and pinning her wrists against the couch. When she grins like this, her canines are thrown into relief. Karen laughs and forces her head up to kiss her lips before she can wish too hard for Trish to drag her teeth against her belly.

Trish is slow and deliberate and smiling with her mouth loosely open when she runs one hand firmly upward along Karen’s thigh. Karen tightens her her hands and gasps and Trish kisses her hard and strong, just as she slides her fingers inside. Karen moans against her tongue and grips a breast with one shaking hand. Feeling the muscle underneath contract as Trish adjusts her weight with one arm. Trish flexes her fingers.

“Mm…” she hums slowly, breaking their mouths apart to smile down at Karen. She can feel her own mouth hanging open. “You’re soaking wet.” Trish whispers, a chuckle in her voice and Karen groans hungrily, opens her legs wider and tugs Trish’s wrist to pull her hand deeper. Trish laughs and adds a third finger, curling them open and shut. Karen feels her legs shake. Trish’s eyes search her face eagerly, watching for a reaction. She flicks her thumb where Karen is already hot and sensitive, and then she’s rubbing there. Karen all but shouts, one arm wrapping itself around Trish’s back so she can pant against her neck.

Their hair mingles, Trish’s trailing into Karen’s open, gasping mouth. Trish’s hand, fingers deliberately moving against  _ just _ the right place, her thumb making Karen’s whole body light up.  
“Like that?” Trish breathes. Karen’s hands scrabble shakily at her waist, feeling her strength, watching her abs rise and fall as she breathes heavily.

Karen makes a noise of absolute surrender as Trish doubles down, pushing her legs wider with one knee. Karen moans helplessly, feeling herself rise higher than she is prepared for, higher than she believed possible, breaking open in hot, white light.

Karen is forcing herself upright before she’s even stopped gasping and reeling from it, kissing Trish up and down her body and Trish is laughing as Karen swaps their places, gently pushing Trish back against the cushions and climbing over her body. Her hair has slipped out of her braid and she pulls the hair tie out and shakes it loose. Trish’s face tenses and untenses as Karen’s hair trails against her. Karen bites her lip on a bashful smile and curls herself between Trish’s legs.

Karen worships her with her mouth, hands gripped tightly to her legs, until Trish is moaning and holding on for dear life to handfuls of her hair and Karen is groaning against her as Trish trembles and shakes and cries out with the force of it and goes lax. She smiles weakly and tugs Karen upward towards her, eyes wide with amazement. At  _ Karen.  _ As if she can’t believe what she’s seeing. As if Karen is something to  _ wonder _ at.

Panting and clinging to each other on the couch, both happy and sleepy, Karen giggles.  
“What?” Trish prompts, nudging her shoulder. Karen is lying with her arms wrapped around her waist, head settled against her stomach.  
“Seems silly to be using the couch.” Karen says, grinning widely. Can’t help herself. “I have a perfectly good bed in the other room.”

***

Matt steels himself. A knock on the door means either Foggy or Karen. Means he can’t fuck up. Can’t drift. He can’t hurt them again. They’re desperate for him to know they care, to know they’re there for him and… it should help. He feels lost and ungrateful for it, because it stings that he doesn’t know how to  _ react _ . It can feel nice, but it just as often feels as if they’re giving him something that he doesn’t know how to process, that he’s letting them down with his lack of understanding, lack of normal behaviour. Truthfully, he doesn’t know how to be loved. He’s forgotten if he ever knew how.  A truth that they can’t know, because he can already sense the heartbreak on Foggy’s imagined face. Can already feel Karen’s sinking heart if he was to reveal the lonely edges of himself.

Matt’s been worrying about showing a positive, healing exterior, so much so, that he jolts when he opens to door to find a cloud of whiskey, heavy clomping boots and a rasping pseudo-disinterested voice.  
“Murdock. You didn’t call.”  
Jessica Jones tries her best to sound annoyed with him. She mostly succeeds. He knows her voice though. Knows when there’s more to it than that, from their short time together. It’s a strange way of calling someone out for not telling them that you’ve come back from the dead.

Matt finds that he’s stepped back from the door to allow her entrance but hasn’t spoken. Jessica steps towards him, slow, hesitant, into his apartment.  
“Hi, Jessica. Sorry. About that.” He manages, voice more hushed than he means it to be, trying his best not to allow his face to tip away and hide itself out of instinct.  
“Aw, fuckit.” He hears her murmur, too quiet for anyone without super hearing to catch, and then she’s reaching to pull him into a stiff, awkward hug.

It doesn’t last long. It’s just long enough for her face to press against his shoulder, for him to feel a shuddering breath come out of her that maybe gives him more than she wants to let on. Then her weight is lifting away and he realises his arms have wrapped themselves around her back in the process. He releases her. Doesn’t want to.

“Come in.” Matt says, turning and walking away and into his apartment, hoping his voice sounds less choked to a regular human being. Jessica trails behind almost lazily.  
“Someone’s decorated.” She says. Matt turns in her direction to show her his frown.  
“You’ve never been here.”  
“No. Looked in through the window one time from across the street. From the top of that obnoxious billboard actually.”  
“...Why?”  
“Because you were suspicious.” She says it casually and Matt supposes he can’t begrudge her. He can hear a lot more privacy than she sees.

_...I don’t think you morally gotta go around warning everyone…  _ Frank’s voice is clear in Matt’s mind, his words called back to him. He’s  _ always _ clear. Even when the city is too loud to bear, Matt can always remember his words, clear as day. Perhaps the emotional imprint of the memories is too strong.

“You’re miles away.” Matt seems to fall back into himself at the sound of Jessica’s voice.  
“Yeah.” He smiles to put her at ease. “Nowhere bad.”   
“I’ll take your word for it.” She shunts her hip against the counter and leans there with her arms folded, leather creaking. “Your rich douchebag friend sure fixed this place up, huh.”  
“He’s not a rich douchebag.” Matt chuckles, moving to the fridge. “Beer?”  
“Shit, do you do that with every woman you have over? Slouch over to the fridge in your socks looking all cute and ruffled..?”  
“I think most people would call it  __ scruffy.”  
“You’re gonna try and tell me you don’t  _ know _ it’s charming?” She says, sounding altogether reluctant about it.  
“Not the feedback I usually get, no.” Matt finds himself laughing at the disapproving scowl in Jessica’s voice.  
“How do you know Foggy?” He gets the top off two bottles and hands her one.  
“He works for my sometimes boss sometimes associate Hogarth.”  
“Ah. Your lawyer, after...”  
“Yeah. After  __ that.” Jessica snaps. She leans back and takes a drink.

“Well shit. That sure takes the tone down, doesn’t it.” Jessica sighs.  
“I wouldn’t ever judge you, Jess.” Matt says it gently and almost without thinking. How could he? Her head twitches on her neck. He realises he called her  _ Jess _ .  
“Mm.” She grunts.  
“I’m… sorry if that was…”  
“No. No.” Jessica says quickly. She drinks in silence, for a moment.  “I’d usually swear at you, for that.” She chuckles darkly and shakes her head. “Something about you makes me tolerate you, anyways.” She tries her best to sound unconcerned and Matt gets a rush of affection in his chest. The shape of Jessica just leaning there against his kitchen counter, grumpy but strangely companionable, is something he couldn’t even begin to thank her for, though she certainly deserves it.

***

Matt can’t hear anything beyond the pounding in his own ears. Wasn’t ready. He’s been back in the game for three days, couldn’t stay away, never could, and now the guilt has eaten through his need to act, now he has nothing left to hide from the truth.  


The truth is, he’s helpless.

He stumbles into his apartment, hands numb, senses unravelling the room in and out of comprehension. Doesn’t realise until he comes to closing the door of his roof access that his hands are shaking. Makes it downstairs before his breathing gets fast enough to get him dizzy. Feels miles away from his body again. It’s as if he’s controlling himself from the next room, a cold, dead puppet of himself. 

“Matt.”  
He jumps so violently that he nearly trips backwards over one of the armchairs.

The light is on. He was so far from his own head that he didn’t notice the buzz of it over the frantic  traffic beeping two streets away.

It’s Foggy, he manages to get that into his head before the panic happens. Foggy. 

“You’re covered in blood.” Foggy’s voice is thin and breathless with horror and Matt zeroes in on that, latches onto it to pull himself out of the haze. Foggy is close enough for Matt to feel his warmth. His heartbeat is quick. Breath short and damp. He’s scared? Worried?

“Not mine.” Matt tells him, voice almost too tight to speak.  
“Not… Matt you haven’t… done something—“  
“No! No Fog of course not…” Matt struggles to control his lungs into speaking.

Awareness leaks out of him and he doesn’t know anything until Foggy is knelt beside him, not touching. That sort of boundary seems unnatural. Settles in a painful place in Matt’s heart that Foggy opened up that night be found Matt bleeding in his apartment. Ever since he found out about Matt’s powers, he’s been hesitant, sometimes, to give Matt that contact shorthand they developed in place of eye contact and body language. Never mind that Matt is still blind. Never mind that his powers can’t read those things, really.

“What are you trying to do?” Foggy sounds choked. It does nothing to bring Matt back to his body. “Why do you keep  __ doing this?”  
“It’s a  _ part _ of me you know that you brought me my suit you  _ know _ —“  
“Don’t! Don’t you use that!” Foggy staggers to his feet and paces away. “I thought I  _ killed you _ don’t you  _ understand? _ I wasn’t validating your goddamn  __ suicidal bullshit—“  
“Fog it’s not, it’s not about that…” Matt’s breathless. He can barely focus on the room around him enough to hear Foggy’s words.  
“No?” Foggy yells at him. “No? You’re fucking  _ traumatised _ from what happened to you after I gave you that suit, you don’t know what happened, you’re  _ barely  _ recovered and you go out,  __ again!”  
“Foggy… d-don’t…”  
“I can’t see you like this. I can’t watch you do this to yourself.” Foggy sounds as if he’s a block away Matt feels so distant. Everything is drowned in blaring interference. Cars, sirens, shouting, barking...  
“Don’t then. Go. Why are you even here?” Matt spits, dragging a numb hand across his eyes. Angry, suddenly. “You know this is me.”  
“It’s like you’re not even  _ trying—”  _ Foggy shouts.  
“—I tried! Tried to show you who I am.” Matt shouts back, can barely find the words. It isn’t what he wants to say. Can’t get closer to how he really feels over the noise.  
“I don’t accept it I won’t just nod along with this, I can’t ok I just…”   
“This isn’t some dirty fucking… drug habit or something Foggy this isn’t  __ about me .”  
“Oh it’s not? Well I don’t want it to be about me either!”

They stay frozen in silence for a moment.

“I’m leaving. We can talk about this in daylight.” Foggy mutters and makes for the door.

 

“Well. That was embarrassing.” Jessica. She’s lurking on the landing near the roof access.  
“How long have you been standing there?” Matt asks her, feeling exhausted.  
“Didn’t you sense me?” She says, sounding genuinely a little confused, but Matt can’t answer that. She clears her throat. “Long enough.”  
“Mm.” Matt grunts.  
“What happened?” Jessica’s words seem to take a long time to filter through to his brain. Matt struggles with his stupid unresponsive mind. Trying to put it into words keeps making him drift.

“Ok look let’s get you up.” Jessica is beside him suddenly. She lifts him up and maneuvers him into a chair before he can really react.   
“Oh.” He feels himself murmur. “Thanks.”  
“You are bleeding. You lied to him.” Jessica grumbles and Matt swallows.  
“...What?” Takes stock. It’s a long process. Hard to focus. Realises that the pain is part the reason he’s having trouble focusing.  
“You have a bit of a gouge here.” Jessica continues. “It’s not where all the blood came from but it’s enough to be a problem if you don’t sort it out.”  
“Didn’t… I didn’t lie I didn’t realise…” Matt manages and Jessica hisses out a breath through her teeth.

Jessica checks Matt’s head for bumps. Runs her fingers surprisingly lightly through his hair.  
“Nothing there.” She says, frowning with her voice.  
“You’re just traumatised. Lucky you.” Matt snorts out an almost-chuckle.  
“That’s the spirit.” Jessica says, smile shaping her lips. “I’m going to help you, I’m sure you’re capable of doing this yourself under usual circumstances, but you’re acting like you’ve got a wooden head.”  
“Thanks but. I can. I can do it.” Matt forces his fingers to work and manages to thumb the zip of his suit until he can wriggle out of it. Feels the sting once the suit is off.  
“Where’d you keep your first aid stuff?” Jessica is across the room. Matt didn’t sense her move.  
“Jess it’s fine…”  
“Shut up or I won’t help.” She clomps back to him. “Found it no thanks to you. Shit. You make me feel like I should budget for a gym membership. You’re worse than Tr—“ She cuts herself off abruptly. Matt laughs at her comment and pretends not to notice.  
“You don’t need it, some of us are mortal.”  
“ _ Mortal _ isn’t quite the word I would use for you. Imagine what I could do if I actually did anything about it I could…” she trails off. “This isn’t deep.” She tells him.

Matt dresses it himself. Feels closer to his body after speaking to Jess. Lies back when he’s finished and tries not to think about Foggy.  
“Wanna talk about it?” Jess says with fake nonchalance.  
“Murder-suicide. Showed up too late.” Throat closes up for a moment. That short explanation doesn’t come close to the weakening, rattling breath and the uncontrollable flow of blood and the hands holding onto his arms slackening… waiting for an ambulance that wasn’t there yet… listening to the paramedics try to resuscitate from the rooftop...

“Shit. Well. You tried?”  
“Yeah.”  
“You didn’t do the murdering.” Jess reminds him.  
“No.” He murmurs.  
“Yeah. I know it stings anyway.” She sighs and leans back. “Happens in this business. Can’t save everyone. Wouldn’t be your responsibility even if you could.”

She sits tapping her leg for a while.  
“Not saying you should be going out there like this.” She says bluntly. “You’re still experiencing what seems like PTSD, Matt. Anyone bugged you to see someone about this, yet?” Jessica says a little gingerly and Matt snorts humourlessly.  
“Mm, who would I see? ‘Hi I’m Daredevil, I have several months of lost time when I apparently died of which I can account for only a vague handful of days, before that my almost-mentor almost-father was murdered in front of me by the previously dead love of my life…” he coughs. “Me and a bunch of superpowered vigilantes had to save New York from collapsing into oblivion…” he takes a deep breath. “And I don’t know what part of that has caused this…” He trails off.  
“I see your problem.” Jess says. “Hey we might be able to find someone. Have you spoken to Danny?”  
“Danny?”  
“I know. Seems unlikely right? The monks tried to beat it out of him by the sounds of it, but. He never had help after he lost his parents. They call Kun’lun heaven.” She shrugs. “He has some problems figuring out real life sometimes. Thought he was dead for fifteen years, it’ll do that.”  
“God.” Matt whispers, feeling abruptly terrible for complaining of his own problems.  
“Hey he got help.” Jessica shrugs. “He’s rich, he doesn’t have the whole secret identity, I know.” She sighs. “It’s harder for you.”

Matt sits in silence for a moment.  
“What do  _ you _ do?” He asks eventually.  
“You don’t want to deal with it like me.” Jess tells him almost sternly.  
“Maybe  _ you _ need some help.” Matt smiles a little slyly.  
“We all do.” Jessica gives his shoulder a mock-shove, but she’s smiling. “Just. Have people around you, yeah? It helps.”

“Ah. Speaking of people. Karen just came into the lobby downstairs.” Matt tries to push himself upright and groans. It hurts now. He wasn’t healed enough. Foggy was right.  
“Jesus Murdock.” Jessica sighs and beats him across the room. “I’m not your nursemaid but, she’s your friend right. She doesn’t need to see you all bloodied up, now when she only just lost you… where are all your normal shirts this is all office shit…”  
“Jess it’s fine.”  
“Shut up. Let me look at you.” She steers him around by the arm to give him a onceover. She shoves a tee at him. “This should cover it just, for gods sakes get out of that suit and put some sweatpants on.”

Matt steps into his bedroom and tugs the sliding door across for some privacy.  
“You’re right I don’t want Karen seeing me like this it was bad enough she saw me so…” he coughs. “Still looked like a building fell on me when I saw her I don’t think it was the best state for a reunion.”  
“She was probably so relieved to see you alive she didn’t think of it.” She jerks and her heart rate jumps. “Wait  _ Karen? _ Karen who?”  
“Uh. Page?”  
“Oh.  _ Oh.” _ Matt can hear her heavy boots pacing the living room floor.  
“What?” He struggles out of the lower part of the suit, glad of the urgency of the situation and Jessica’s straightforward, grouchy attitude. It’s keeping him together.  
“How do you know Page?” Jessica demands.  
“She’s… she used to work with me, when Foggy and I had a practice together we met her on a case and she did our administration- I mean more than that much more- she’s... my friend.”  
“ _ You  _ had a thing for her too?” Jess splutters and then mutters darkly. “Figures. You’re the same  _ type. _ ”  
“Who am I the same type as?” Matt straightens his shirt and emerges, shoving his hand through his sweaty hair.  
“Look don’t worry.” Jess makes to move towards the roof access and Matt takes a step toward her.  
“Wait can you…” he swallows.  
“Stay?” Jess fidgets. “Don’t worry Murdock I wasn’t leaving I just.” She clears her throat with an almost growling sound.

“Remember that night. How we took our… loved ones.” Her voice hardens into stifled bitterness on those words. “To the station. To keep them safe.”  
“Yeah…”  
“My.  _ Sister. _ ” Her voice is almost mocking on the word. “She was there.”  
“The woman who smelled expensive?” Matt tries to smile gently.  
“Sounds right.” Jess says. Matt imagines that she rolls her eyes by the motion of her head, but it’s always hard for him to tell.  
“Karen was there too.”  
“Oh. Probably where they met.” She sighs. “Something happened. I can’t think about her in the same way. We haven’t spoken since.”  
“Oh. And Karen..?”  
“Oh. They’re dating. I spy on people, ok. I needed. To check on her. She wasn’t doing well and I  _ shouldn’t  _ care but. Anyway. She’s dating Karen Page. The journalist.”  
“That’s her.”  
“Right.”  
“Have you met her?”  
“No. Not without a few buildings and a camera between us.” She says it shamelessly and Matt chokes out a tense laugh.  
“You’re as creepy as I am. At  _ least. _ ” Matt says, sort of tenses in case the joke was over a line but Jessica actually laughs.  
“Yeah.” She says.

“You must be pretty close if she was one of your people.” Jessica says. Karen is in the elevator.  
“She’s the first person I actually  _ told _ . Before you, anyway. Foggy found out. Elektra had already been briefed by Stick, didn’t know it at the time, I thought she figured it out.”  
“ _ Oh. _ ”  
“I owed it to her.” He shrugs. “My shit got her into trouble.” Karen knocks.  
“Ok.” Matt listens to Jessica’s heart rate just to steady himself. “Thank you for staying.” Matt says, awkwardly on the way to the door.  
“Not a problem, Matt.” He thinks it might be the first time she hasn’t called him  _ Murdock _ . The first time he’s noticed anyway.

“Hey, Matt. Foggy told me what happened.” Karen marches directly into the apartment and Matt trails behinds. She swings around to look at him when he’s made it to the living room.  
“I’m not mad. I’m not. I get that you can’t just leave this. Oh. Hi?” Karen has presumably spotted Jessica.  
“This is Jessica Jones.”  
“Oh!  _ Oh. _ Um. Hello.” Karen crosses and sticks out her hand to shake, tucking her hair behind one ear with her free hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”  
“Likewise.” Jessica grunts awkwardly.  
“Well I suppose you’re sort of…” Karen gestures vaguely. “Teammates?” She tries, almost gingerly.  
“Yeah, team mates.” Matt says, shifting on his feet, but he feels Jessica nod firmly.  
“Right well.” Karen paces a little. “Jessica. Can I call you…”  
“Sure.” Jessica says before she can complete the question, sounding grudging about it.  
“I can say this in front of you.”

Karen sighs and moves across the room to grip Matt’s arm. He doesn’t mean the sound that comes out of him. It’s always the same with physical affection. The moment skin touches skin he knows he doesn’t get enough. Knows he needs it. Karen especially feels so overwhelmingly safe that he’s never been able to hide that from her.

“Foggy  _ does _ understand. Or... he wants to. I know he probably said some stuff…” he can feel the tilt of her head, feel her sad smile. “But he gets it. He gets the need for the mask. He’s just scared ok? He can’t bear to lose you again.” Matt tightens his fingers on her arm, just a gentle squeeze.

“I know.” He says softly. “I know. I don’t have the  _ right.  _ I know that. I don’t have the right to hate him for being scared for me. Not when I let him think he was alone in that hospital.”  
“You need to let that go. It was a long time ago.” Karen frowns. Matt can feel it pinching her face, from this close.  
“Not so long.” Matt says quietly. “Just feels that way. Even for me and I missed some of it.” He tries to smile.  
“Tell me about it.” She hugs him.

Jessica stays, when Karen leaves. They talk for hours. Until Matt can smell the change in the air that signals dawn. There’s an ease between them that Matt can’t remember feeling with anyone since he came back.

Except… and it gives him a tiny sensation of falling to think about…  _ Frank _ .

*

Foggy is at the door the following day and Matt braces but Foggy is more nervous that he is.  
“Fog, what’s wrong?” Matt ushers him into his apartment. Foggy fidgets from foot to foot.  
“I’m sorry.” He says tightly.  
“You…  _ you  _ shouldn’t be apologising to  _ me.” _ Matt whispers. It’s devastating. The words he can barely remember himself saying are still aching even now.  
“Yeah. I should.” Foggy sighs. “I should. I’m like a jealous lover.”  
“ _ What?”  _ Matt splutters, half laughing.  
“I’m jealous! You loved her and you love his city more than you love  _ me _ and that bugs me.”  
“I don’t…”  
“You do and I shouldn’t hold  _ that  _ against you.” Matt is thinking about Frank as he speaks. Why is he thinking of Frank? His shape. His smell.  
“No no, Fog. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone out. Shouldn’t have said what I did, it was cruel.” Matt says, shaking himself out of it.  
“I know, Matty.” Foggy sighs and pulls Matt close with one arm. Matt gets a sudden scent of roses. It’s intense, actually. Foggy has a bunch of flowers in his other hand. “But I guess what I learned from losing you is… getting mad at you doesn’t help. I just forgot Ok?” Foggy mumbles against his neck. He’s warm and solid. Matt holds onto him. Missed him so much. So  _ much. _ “I got scared and forgot that.” Foggy releases him.

_ You deserve more than I can give you. _ Matt wants to say, but he doesn’t, because he can’t bear to make Foggy think about what he’s lost. Instead, he reaches to brush his fingertips against the flowers.

“Don’t apologise.” He says again. “Roses?” He asks.  
“Yeah! Yeah they don’t look crazy beautiful but they smell  _ amazing _ I uh, I asked. For a good smell.” Foggy sounds almost shy. Matt hugs him again because he can’t help it, and goes to find a vase.

 

***

 

Frank doesn’t speak to the darkness anymore. Learned that lesson.

Still, the fact that Matt is alive and well somewhere nearby is a comforting thought when the inevitable darkness takes ahold in the small hours. A much better feeling than believing he’s speaking to the dead, or to nobody, even if he isn’t speaking anymore.

“Frank, can I talk to you after?” Curtis asks, one session where Frank’s maybe been listening more than speaking. It’s not bad, he just doesn’t have much to talk about, but he knows how it might look.

“When do I ever not stay for a cup of coffee, Curt?” Frank smiles.

The session passes with the usual mix of good bad and ugly. It’s positive, though. There’s a constructive kind of atmosphere in the room. One kid, Davey, really tugs everyone’s heartstrings, Frank included. He’s come a long way in the five short weeks he’s been coming along, and Frank gives him a gruff clap on the arm and a nod before he leaves. The kid smiles. His eyes hardly wrinkle when he smiles, he’s so young.

“What is it, Curt?” Frank prompts, because Curtis is making him a coffee in silence and it’s making Frank fidget on his feet. Curt straightens up and hands him the cup.  
“I’m thinking of starting a mentoring program.”  
“Uh. I mean that sounds like a good idea.” Frank doesn’t like where this is going.  
“Wondering if you’d be interested in trialing it for me.” Frank shifts.  
“Don’t know if  _ that’s _ such a good idea…” Frank thinks about having to offload his shit on  _ another _ person, and feels himself go cold and tense on the inside. Curt chuckles.  
“Frank.  _ You _ would be the mentor.”  
“Uh…” Frank chokes out a startled laugh, more splutter than anything else. “That might be even be  _ less  _ of a good idea.” He avoids Curt’s eyes, a bit breathless.  
“Hey. You don’t have to say yes.” Curt shrugs. “Just. There’s a messy kinda kid starting next week. Thought maybe you might be able to help. Having been all sorts of messy yourself.” Frank laughs then, surprising even himself that it comes out genuine.  
“Make sure he don’t turn into me, huh?”  
“Well  _ she’s _ not pretending to be dead and hiding from everyone.” Curt grins. “So she might have one up on you there.”  
“She just might.”  
“She’s angry. Feel like you’ll have some stuff to say to her.”  
“I’ll think about it, yeah?” Frank nods and shifts from foot to foot. “I’m flattered that you think I’m up to that.”  
“I  _ know _ you are.” Curt says softly. Frank snorts humourlessly. Jaw clenching and unclenching as his mind gives him a helpfully vivid callback to standing one side of a freezer door, kid strapped up with explosives on the other side.

This kid  _ wants _ help. She’s not Lewis.

“It won’t be like that.” Curt says. How he knows where Frank’s gone, he doesn’t know, but he’s grateful. “All of you have had to do stuff you hate that you had to do. That’s exactly why I want you on this one.”  
“Yeah. Ok.” Frank says.

He agrees to it, of course. Anything for Curt. And he’s flattered really. Besides, there’s something calming in helping someone else with their problems, even if they’re  _ much _ too close to his own chest.

Rachel  _ is _ young, but her eyes are old. She lost her family after coming back, same as Frank, in a Mob hit, same as Frank, and he can see her forcing down the feeling behind her eyes and out of the way before Curt has even finished introducing him.

Frank lends her a book.

Next time they meet, they talk a bit. Apartments, silence, sleep. Frank learned from the best that it’s about letting someone come to you. She’s less stiff around the shoulders now. The dark patches under her eyes maybe look a little less like bruises. She moves like someone accustomed to being a little more muscular than she is. He’s never known her any other way, but he knows by some instinct that there’s supposed to be a certain bulk to her. A certain mass. Strength and weight. 

Frank forces back the little streaks of memory that come with that observation.

 

Maria softening her worry into a tease in front of the kids.

“C’mon, Frank. You don’t have to watch your weight. You know I’m not gonna eat all these leftovers.” Telling her that she doesn’t need to lose anything, trying to flatter her concern away. It was true though. She was so damn beautiful that summer. Always.

Remembers without meaning to, how her concern had given way to frustration when they were alone. Hadn’t seen it at the time. She’d been brutal and he’d felt more wrong than he’d ever felt in their home. Was still healing from Kandahar physically and mentally. Hadn’t come to terms with the mental side. Was ignoring it. They argued and he couldn’t translate her anger into what it really was.  _ You’ve lost weight. You aren’t sleeping properly _ .  _ You’re already hurting, please, please don’t leave again. _ He’d been so angry. Stomach churning with that sickening mixture of missing the simple, unchallenging rhythm of his squad and the terrible guilt he always got from thinking like that.

Only, that night, he’d woken with that violent jolt of horror that was already a part of him, to find Maria speaking softly, arm extended across the safe distance between them to stroke his hair as he found his way back from the nightmares. He remembers clinging to her hand, pressing it to his lips and locking eyes with her until his breathing returned to normal. She told him that she was worried, then. Quiet, in the dark. He curled up small out of reflex, hating himself for not understanding her anger, for scaring her to the other end of the bed, hating that she was right to be afraid of him. Maria just settled at his back, satisfied that it was safe to do so, circled him with her arms, and buried her face in the growing curls at the back of his head. He couldn’t help but freeze up. He didn’t deserve it. Knew it. Deep down.

“Hey. You’re ok.” Maria murmured.

“I’m not. Am I? I’m not. I fuckin’... I  _ scare you,  _ Ri.” His voice cracked and his breath shuddered and he felt as if he’d slipped up in showing her that. Forced it down where she couldn’t see it.

“I’m not scared of you.” Maria snorted, kissing his head and chuckling a little. “You didn’t know where you were. Just giving you space. I was trying not to scare  _ you _ .” Frank didn’t know if she meant it. Wished he could believe it.  
“I know I’m not right this time.” Frank murmured.  
“It always takes it out of you.” Maria said to him. “This time it’s different.”  
“Mm.” Frank said, so grateful that she didn’t question him about it. “It felt different.” He admitted. And he felt terrible that he’d turned their bed into a dark place, that he’d let the it leak out of him like that, but he did feel better. As if he’d been carrying something heavy and uncomfortable.

 

Rachel doesn’t have anyone to shout at her for not eating. Frank speaks to Curt about how best to deal with the subject.

The forth time they meet, it’s in a diner. She eats enough to make him feel as if progress has been made. They meet there again a second time.  
“You’re Frank Castle.” Rachel  says, flatly, before he’s even sat down.  
“Yeah listen people tell me I look like him….” Frank tries, but her eyes flash. Her red hair is dishevelled, unbrushed curls escaped from the bun she’s yanked them into, flying around her head as she glares at him.  
“You’re Frank Castle.” She says again.  
“And what if I am?” Frank leans back into his seat tiredly.  
“No ifs.” She says, and slides the second mug of coffee towards him, eyes still fixed right on him when he looks back to her. “I know you are. Found out you have a connection to Curtis.”  
“How?”  
“I did some digging.”  
“Huh.” Frank’s almost impressed.  
“But I don’t get it.” She says. Frank takes a swig of coffee, half hiding his face behind it.  
“How d’you mean.”  
“Why would Curt put me with  _ you _ .” Her fingernails tap an irritable rhythm on the table top.  
“Uh.” Frank says. “Y’know I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

Rachel’s face is grim as she leans in. When she speaks, her voice is lowered.  
“Y’know my folks died.” She murmurs. Her eyes are dark. “And I’m good at digging.” She nods to herself, shifting back and forth just slightly in her seat. “I think I know where to go. Where to start.” And Frank’s stomach seems to lose its base. Why Curt gave him this one, this particular broken girl out of all the other broken kids, is suddenly vivid and clear.  
“Rachel.” He grunts out quickly. He leans towards her. “Listen to me, Rachel. It… it doesn’t  _ work _ .” He finds he’s shaking his head compulsively and stops that.  
“Doesn’t what?” She demands. “Doesn’t make you  _ feel _ better? I don’t want to feel better I want it  __ done.”  
_ “Wait wait wait.” _ Frank narrows his eyes. “It ain’t what you think it is.”  
“Then what—“  
“It won’t help.”  
I don’t want  _ help I  _ want it  _ over…”  _ her face is contorted with rage.  
_ “ _ That’s what I’m saying it  _ doesn’t  _ end.” Frank lets his voice get hushed. “It doesn’t  _ end _ . I’m not gonna help you do that to yourself, Rachel.”  
“I didn’t  __ ask you to.” She says, jaw set stubbornly, but there’s doubt in her eyes.

Frank considers her for a long time.  
“You gotta do  _ something _ , huh?” Frank says gently. Rachel glares at him for several seconds before she nods.  
“Right. Well. I got this friend. She won’t help you kill anybody. If there’s a case here, she’ll do what she can. You do this her way.” Rachel glares at the table top. Her body language is coiled like a spring.  
“You ever do it her way?” She raises her head enough to meet his eyes. Frank sighs.  
“Don’t model yourself after me.” He tells her quietly. “My way is… it’s not for everyone. Shouldn’t be for  _ anyone _ , y’understand?”  
“Mm.” Rachel doesn’t look or sound convinced, but she does take Karen’s number, scrawled on a napkin.

Frank watches her leave, finishes his coffee and pays the check. When he leaves the diner, it’s getting dark. The city sounds twist all around him.

Briefly, Frank considers logging this one with Matt. He doesn’t.

*

“Rachel really is your mini-me, huh?” Frank can tell by Karen’s voice through his cell phone that she’s smirking. Frank groans.  
“Don’t say  _ that _ .” He rubs the back of his head.  
“Don’t fight it, she’s you if you’d come out a pretty redhead.”  
“Any chance of you convincing her  _ not _ to be me?” Frank says, pinching the bridge of his nose.  
“Maybe.” Karen is grinning, now. She’s already confident with her leads. Frank relaxes a little.  
“Thank you, Karen.” He looks around the the people passing on the street, as if someone is listening, shoves his free hand deeper into his pocket. “How’s Matt?”  
“Fine.” Karen says, too quickly, voice high.  
“Karen?” Frank says quietly.  
“He’s. You know. I think it’s going to take  _ time. _ We’re… trying not to push him too hard.”  
“Can’t rush this stuff.”  
“Yeah I know. I think Foggy is.. Struggling with that.”  
“Mm. I can understand that.” Thinks of Curt, how he was for the first few weeks of Frank approaching him. The loss on his face whenever he’d try to reach a part of Frank that was forgotten or gone. The adjustment.  
“He’s not going to be the same.” Frank says heavilly. “You can’t expect the Matt from  _ before _ back. He’ll be changed but. He’ll still be  _ Matt _ , yeah?”  
“Yeah. It’s just remembering that, you know? Remembering to make sure he knows that’s ok. Don’t want to make him feel like… like he has to give us more than he has.”

“How are  _ you _ doing?” Frank asks.  
“Oh. I’m… actually not bad, good, actually, I know that probably sounds… selfish.”  
“No, no,  _ God no, _ Karen, it’s good.”  
“I met someone actually.”  
“Hey, that’s great!” Frank chuckles. “Things are lookin’ up then, huh?”  
“I guess so.” Karen’s smiling again. “I don’t know if you’d approve. We’re both good at finding trouble.”  
“Karen? I’ll do my best to approve of anyone who makes you happy, yeah?”

“I actually could do with your help with something.” Karen says. “It’s a big ask. If you turn it down, if you don’t think it will be good for you, just tell me and I’ll step right off. It’s only a request.”  
“Uh… what is it?”  
“We’re after some bad guys, we heard there’s a meeting arranged with one of them, with the drug lords they’re funding. Proof, if we can record the meeting…”  
“Sounds dangerous. ‘We’, like you and the new boyfriend..?”  
“Girlfriend.” Karen corrects. “And yeah, like us. If you could escort us in? You’re all about the strategy and… if there’s trouble…”  
“You’re asking me into a potential firefight?”  
“Yeah, listen this was out of line to--”  
“No, hey, no Karen, course I’ll do it.” He shrugs. “How likely is this to get ugly?”  
“Not very.” Karen says slowly. “If anything having you there is a _preventative_. You help us dodge the trouble.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some regrouping before stuff goes down in the next chapter.  
> Rachel Cole-Alves is from a Punisher run by Greg Rucka that you should check out, it doesn't go anything like where this is going so no spoilers here.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok folks that tag for suicide attempt comes into play now, be warned things are about to get a bit darker.

They meet outside around the back. Frank gets there first. He’s early, needed to get an idea of what they were walking into. It seems straightforward enough. These people have had a long time getting their own way. Besides a few guards in the front, there’s not much in the way of protection.

Karen appears out of the darkness with a blonde woman. Her eyes spell absolute danger. Figures.

“This is Trish.” Frank shakes her hand.   
“Good to finally meet you.” She smiles, a little too easily. “Karen talks about you a lot.” There’s fire in her eyes. Makes him think of Matt, and, uncomfortably, Billy. It’s the image of his razor-sharp intensity. Frank does his best not to hold it against her.  
“Likewise.” Frank tells her. It’s not entirely true, but he gathered enough. Karen makes herself readable, for him.

Karen knows where the meeting will be taking place, having made a habit of the sorts of stakeouts she invites Frank to, on occasion.

The inside of the building isn’t entirely dark. Moving through the brightly lit areas feels wrong to Frank. The parts of him that have been tuned to move silent and unseen through hostile environments rejects it a little, but it’s something he can work around.

Karen navigates then through a back entrance with a stolen key card. Trish stole it, he gathers from their brief exchange at the door. 

And on the face of it, it seems like things are going to go ahead as planned. So, it turns out Frank is damn lucky that he’s paranoid.

The meeting has barely begun, the three of them all crouched in their vantage point behind some desks three glass fronted offices away, when the first shot rings out. Karen and Trish are flattened to the ground before Frank has time to order them down so that’s good. There was a sound of shattering glass with the first shot. Frank thinks it came through the window, until he gets a look and finds the flat glass wall of the office in which the meeting is held has gone. It’s chaos inside. Everyone is flailing, covered in broken glass, scuffling for weapons. Pretty soon there’s going to be bullets flying in ever direction. Frank spots movement, just a shadow and then it’s gone.  
“There!” Frank hisses and points and hears someone else whisper the same. He turns to see Trish with her head up, eyes focussed on the same point. She’s not being an idiot about it, so he doesn’t say anything.

Frank let’s Trish keep eyes on the shooter, ducks back down again and searches for exits out of the line of fire, but the businessmen and criminals are running for the stairwell now, shooting at shadows. As he watches, a fleeing man collapses to the ground with another shot that takes out his knee.  
“Shooter’s moved. I can’t see them.” Trish murmurs and Frank narrows his eyes and sweeps the room again. Where…

A figure seems to emerge from the darkness, all in black. She crouches. Finishes the guy off with a knife to the throat.  
“Rachel.” Frank whispers.  
“What.” Karen jerks up to get a look. “No!”  
“She got you talking.” Frank doesn’t ask, he knows. Rachel is too smart for her own good.  
“There wasn’t a connection! I didn’t… I didn’t find a connection…” Karen says desperately, face shifting wildly.  
“Hey. Karen. Not your fault.” Frank says, feeling his heart rate accelerate to uncomfortable just before the adrenaline pushes the awareness of that out of the way. “How did she get back in.” Frank prompts.

Karen points it out at once. Frank knew, but the search has focused her eyes again.  
“I’m getting you both out of here.” Frank says. It’s easy. It’s always so easy. He shouldn’t enjoy the buzz, but he does. “Stay low.”

The people in the ill-fated meeting are quiet now. The survivors have more sense than to try to run now. They’re hunkered down and armed. Rachel is still out picking off the runners. That’s going to be the trouble. Frank, Trish and Karen are going to look like fleeing enemies to Rachel.

Frank’s vision is sharp. Trish and Karen have produced guns and he would laugh if he wasn’t so utterly absorbed in the situation. Frank stops, checks their position at the door to the concealed maintenance stairwell. Waves at the overprepared journalists to follow. Rachel has her back to them, efficiently stabbing a man against a wall. Frank signals the other two to stop out of sight and moves up behind her. The movement of Frank raising his handgun makes her freeze.

 

Rachel turns and raises her own handgun in one fluid movement, but Frank has his pointed right between her eyes. She doesn’t shoot, but her eyes are over-focussed.  
“Blue on blue.” Frank rumbles out. Rachel’s brow furrows and she blinks at him, as if she is waking from a trace. She shifts her finger from the trigger and lowers her gun. Her surprise shifts to irritation almost at once.  
“What the fuck are you doing here, Castle?” She hisses at him.  
“Escorting friends to record that meeting you just took out."  
“Your friend Karen is trying to take them down. I can’t risk the law on this. If they don’t go down what then?”  
“These people behind the attack at your wedding?” Frank asks, as gently as he can manage when confronted by Rachel looking… well. Looking how he imagined he looked back when it was all still fresh. She’s bloodstained and restless on her feet, head jerking with agitation, scowl twitching violently.  
“Yes.”  
“Right.” Frank takes a deep breath. “Come with me.” He moves to Karen and Trish, both ready for anything by the look of them, back to back. Rachel has miraculously followed him. He wasn’t sure she would.  
“There was security on the first floor. Passed them when we came in. They’ll be on their way here. Cole. We get Trish and Karen out of the building together.”  
“What. You expect me to abandon this just because you people tried to get your shit justice—“  
“Cole.” Frank says sharply. That shakes her out of it. “You didn’t tell Karen everything or we wouldn’t be here.”  
“I told you I married, it's Alves. Telling Karen about my connection here wasn’t my responsibility.”  
“I get it. You’re doing what you have to do. If you help me get them out, I’ll help you clean up.”  
“Clean up like…” Trish says slowly.  
“Like finish off the survivors.” Karen says. Frank doesn’t look at her directly. He sees enough to know that her expression is one of distaste.

“You’re gonna just kick us out of this?” Trish demands, turning to Frank angrily. Karen stares at her. There’s a light in Trish’s eyes that isn’t quite Matt but close enough to feel unsettling, because it’s a little bit close to his own heart, too. Frank locks gaze with Trish.  
“Hey. You and Karen get safe.” Frank tells her. Her eyes widen a little at his words. “You weren't supposed to be visible. What happens next wasn’t part of the plan.”  
"This was our plan." Karen growls. Frank almost wants to take a step back from her sudden rage.  
“Karen he's right. Any one of these assholes could have seen us.” Trish drops her eyes and reaches for Karen’s hand.  
“Fine.” Karen snaps. “ _ Fine _ .” Frank has seen that look before. Her story is gone. She’s going to need time to adjust.

They meet the guards in the stairwell. Working with Rachel feels so natural that Frank all but forgets where he is. He’s in the zone, taking the fight bit by bit.

They’re at the back door by the time Frank looks at Karen. She looks grim. Trish seems ok, but Karen’s face is hard and her mouth is a tense line. Frank takes a breath and turns away from her. She catches his wrist. She doesn’t say anything. Their eyes just stay like that, locked. He feels himself shrink a little, but she squeezes his hand and then releases it. She almost nods.  
“Text me when you’re home, safe.” Karen says, and then she and Trish set off at a jog. Her words minimise it slightly. As if he’s simply driving home in a storm.

Frank gives himself a count of five. Then, he and Rachel move back inside the building.

It’s as if they’ve been working together for years. Frank doesn’t remember the last time he worked without an edge of desperation to it. There isn’t one now. Rachel is trustworthy backup. Besides, this simply must be done.

They work through the building systematically. The criminals have regrouped. They put up a fight. Some of them have even grown confident in their short absence. Sooner of later though, Frank has his jeans and hoodie covered in blood and there are no survivors.

It doesn’t feel good when the adrenaline fades, but it doesn’t hurt either. He and Rachel simply nod when they part. Frank texts Karen, but not before changing, going out again and burning his clothes stuffed into a paper bag a few blocks from his apartment.

 

***

 

It doesn’t take much to find Rachel again. Works out with the police scanner on. He never got rid of the thing. She turns up without much in the way of searching. Knew she wasn’t done.

He shows and she seems to expect him. Flashes him a grim little smile.  
“Stragglers, huh.” He says. Not a question. Know’s that’s what’s happening.  
“Yeah.” Rachel fills him in when it’s quiet and they’re a safe distance away along the rooftops. Moving, as it turns out, towards the next target.  Frank knows by the terrible, consuming fire in her eyes, by the desperation there every time she squeezes off a shot, every time her knife finds its mark, that she’s reckless. Sensed it last time. Remembers Red getting to that boat, all that time ago. He would have blown himself to bits. Looking back, that would have been the mostly likely turn of events if Matt hadn’t forced him to stop. Made him see enough reason to keep him going that little bit longer it took to get him out the other side of that.

Matt’s approach kept him too distant. Didn’t get close enough to see sense. They’d traded too many fists, by then. Frank is in a better position. Knows that if he fights her on this, she’ll push him away. Shut him out. The least he can do is stop her spiral shifting her too out of control to ever see the end of this. Make sure she doesn’t get herself killed.

The guy’s well-guarded. Was in on the whole thing to get back at Rachel’s late journalist barely-husband for exposing his human trafficking operation and forcing him underground. Got recruited because his contacts knew he’d be interested. Piece of shit. The sort of shitbag Frank doesn’t feel any doubt in taking down. And, maybe Frank is too close to this. Maybe he slips all too easily back into the mission.

The thought comes back a few nights and crime scenes later. She invited him the last few times. Tonight was different though. Rachel, after. Covered in blood and trying her best to act as if the flesh wound to the abdomen she took isn’t bothering her as she compresses it with one hand. Her eyes have a look that shakes him with dread down to the bone. There is no relief, there. He remembers. Still feels it, on his bad nights. Raw like it just happened.

In the end, he isn’t sure he did the right thing. Isn’t sure he did it for the right reasons. In the end, all he can do is give her shoulder a gruff squeeze and make sure she gets home safe. Makes sure the wound is dressed correctly. He stitches her up, neater than he’d do for himself. Doesn’t know what that means.

They don’t speak. Right before he leaves, Frank see’s the book her leant her, bookmark half way through the pages. Maybe it eases the dark void that’s been slowly growing in his chest.

 

***

 

“Frank, do you have a girlfriend?” Leo asks politely and Frank almost chokes on his potatoes. The image of Matt in his mind at her words nearly makes him laugh out loud, but he manages not to. Can’t really explain that one without spilling a lot of secrets that aren’t his.  
“Leo.” Sarah gives her a look, and Frank swallows the potato mass and chuckles.  
“Hey it’s ok. No, Leo, I don’t have a girlfriend, why do you ask sweetheart?”  
“I saw you with a woman.” She says. “I was on a field trip.”  
“Oh yeah? What did she look like?” Frank asks, assuming Karen. David has made similar assumptions, they’re close.  
“Red hair.” Leo says and Frank isn’t expecting the sudden sense of guilt. Carefully makes sure his right hand is out of sight. Forgot to check if the bruises were visible.  
“Oh! No that’s my friend, Rachel. What made you think she’s my girlfriend?” He smiles, keeps it casual. Hopes that David’s expression isn’t as suspicious as he thinks it could be.  
“You’re both kinda scary looking.” Leo shrugs. Frank laughs properly at that. As if to Leo, he and Rachel are somehow the same animal. That it’s natural they group together.  
“We have similar stories.” Frank explains. “Similar backgrounds. My friend Curtis looks after ex soldiers and he thought she might like to meet me to talk about things.” David might look sort of suspicious.

After, he takes Frank aside.  
“There’s something in your face.” He murmurs. “Something I haven’t seen since we were  _ roommates _ .”  
“What?” Frank says, trying for innocent and coming out croaking and awkward.  
“Are you ok?” David says, forcing Frank to meet his eyes by staring at him in that unavoidable way of his. David’s eyes are too shiny.  
“Yeah.”  
“Listen. If you need anything. If you need to drink whiskey and talk about anything…”  
“Hey David that’s, I appreciate it Ok I’m just. Helping out a friend.”  
“If you need help, I’m here.” David manages to make it not so awkward as it could be. Frank let’s himself meet his eyes again. Crinkled with concern, hair fluffed from the hand he ran through it in distraction.  
“Yeah. Thank’s, David.”

He doesn’t talk about it, though. Tries not to think about what must be written on his face. He hardly knows how he feels himself. Maybe it’s easier to see from the outside.  
  


***

Frank passes Karen’s apartment. Tells himself he’s going that way anyway. That he isn’t just going to check for flowers. There isn’t any. He keeps on walking.  
“Hey.” Frank’s eyes have just been skimming the sidewalk, not really focused on anything, so at the sound of Matt’s voice, he’s brought back to earth with a sharp jolt.

Matt is stood on the pavement facing him. He’s dressed in a suit and jacket, hair all ruffled and blowing slightly in the breeze. Frank feels his shoulders loosen and tries his best not to think too much about that.  
“I just came from a meeting.” Matt shifts a little nervously. “On my way to see Karen. Were you just there, or…”  
“No. No I. I’m just passing.” Frank says it a little breathlessly. A flicker of what could be pain passes across Matt’s face, but he doesn’t say anything. Frank nods at him and moves, passes him.

“Hey wait.” Matt says and Frank glances back. Matt has a hand raised in his direction as if to catch him, but not high enough to touch.  
“Frank. I… it’s not just that I was grateful for what you did for me.” Matt’s head is angled down. His hands wring themselves absently around his cane. “You’re good company. I… enjoy speaking with you.”  
“We’ve has our differences but uh.” Frank turns to really face him. Opposite Matt stood on the pavement, just a little bit too much space separating them. “Yeah." He nods a few times, can't look at him. "But uh…” he takes a deep breath. “I’m not gonna lie to you, if this… in case it changes anything. I haven’t stopped… doing what I do. Since we last met I… I’ve been operating again.” He doesn’t mention Rachel. It’s not important. It was his own choice.  
“Say… say that again.” Matt says slowly, furrowing his brow.  
“I killed people”. Frank spits out. “I still do.”

Frank can feel himself breathing hard for what has to be at least a minute before Matt speaks again.  
“You… you’re different.”  
“What?” Frank snaps, squinting, head twitching from side to side.  
“Before, on that rooftop, in court, on the boat, the killing made you  _ steadier _ or at least that’s what I thought at first, that your compulsion to do that was keeping you calm, I realised later that I was probably mistaken, that the relief you got from taking them out probably only registered as comparative calm because if the  _ extreme _ stress you were displaying at the time and the violence was something you could  _ focus _ on…”  
“Jesus Christ Red you gonna go back to being my fucking shrink now—“ Frank takes a step backwards in disgust.  
“Wait wait what I’m saying is, that’s  _ changed _ , you’re not reacting to it in the same way.”  
“What do you think I’m feeling now?” Frank demands, moving toward him sudden and compulsive.  
“You’re afraid. Of it. Yourself… something.” Matt looks concerned and grim and for a moment Frank feels  _ physically _ sick.  
“Shut the fuck up Murdock.” Frank growls out before he can stop himself.

“I’m just telling you what I can hear.”  
Matt’s mouth is so fucking smug now. Lips loosely curled into a maddening grin. Frank is back on the rooftop again and the rage of that night is suddenly  _ tangible.  _ He’s  _ breathing  _ it again.  
“What’s wrong?” Matt says, smile bitter, edged with pointed teeth now. “You don’t like talking to me when I can talk back?”  
“You fucking self righteous piece of  _ shit _ !” Frank splutters, glaring at him. His head tilts irritatingly in Frank’s direction.  
“Do I sense that I’ve hit a nerve, here?”  
"I get it now I fucking  _ get _ how your shit is invasive” Frank spits the words out and watches a spasm of pain flicker across Matt’s features. “I’m  _ not _ who you want me to be alright? I don’t give a shit what you think you can sense, stop reading shit into my goddamn heart beat just because you’re so fucking desperate to feel less guilt over coming to  _ me  _ for help.”  
“I could have gone  _ anywhere _ .” Matt snarls.  
“Then why didn’t you?” Frank demands and Matt is shouting before Frank has even finished speaking.  
“Because I thought that you would understand!”

It’s a choking sound as much as it’s a shout, as if the emotion has broken a dam. Frank is startled into silence. The outburst is so at odds with the over-composed arrogant snark of only moments ago. Matt is panting and shaky and reddening now, embarrassed.

“Look I did, I thought I did.” Frank pushes a hand through his hair and fidgets. “I thought… you did.” He can’t speak for a moment. Can’t believe that came out of him. He feels pathetic, wants to turn and walk away like a fucking coward, but Matt just stands there in silence, fingers twisting around his cane.  
“If I don’t… I want to.” Matt says quietly. “If I’m wrong I just. It’s not important. I don’t want to make you into anything, that’s not… that’s not why I said it. I’m just concerned for you. I don’t like… I don’t like feeling that you’re in pain.” It’s a struggle to say it, Frank can see that, and it does hurt to hear it. Matt should not be concerned for him. Something about the concept is grotesque.  
“Even if that’s what you’re feeling from me.” Frank says, letting out a humourless little huff of a chuckle. “If that’s what it is? It’s my own problem.”  
“You don’t have to be alone. You know that better than I do.” Matt says. “But I’m here. I’m really here. You can talk to me. I won’t judge you, I wasn’t judging you. I didn’t mean for you to feel like that was judgement. I just… want you to know I guess. That I care about you.” His voice cracks and he drops his head to hide his face. Frank steps towards him and reaches out, nudges his arm with the back of one hand. His instinct is to touch, hold, cling to, but he can’t expect to be allowed that.  
“Thank you.” Frank says softly. “Look uh. We can spend some time together, if that’s what you want.”  
“I’d like that, Frank.” Matt says quietly.  
“Good. Good. Uh. Tomorrow? Lunch? That diner near your place, you said you like it there once.”  
“Doesn’t stink of fryer fat so bad as that one  _ you _ like.” Matt grins almost shyly and Frank feels his shoulders relax again. He shrugs.  
“I mean I can’t dispute that.” He says with a little smile that he hopes Matt can sense. “Walk you home?”

***

“Hey Pete.” The voice is quiet and Frank does jump a bit (or freezes, his body’s answer to a jump, at least when there’s nothing else going wrong with him) because it’s sharp as a razor and very close to his ear.

Madani was waiting for him. She’s leaning casually in the shadows. She’s seen him with Matt. Somehow, he thinks that is the least of his worries.

“Hey Madani.”  
“Dinah, please. Your hand was the only thing stopping all my blood from leaking out, once. I think you deserve my first name, at least.” Frank ignores the nausea and tries his best not to see flashes of carousel lights and hear the screams of children mingling with...  
“Think you could call me Frank, then, Dinah?” He half grins, tries to make it look lazy but truthly he’s uncomfortable. The exact nature of the emotion remains elusive, beyond the obvious link to  _ that night _ .

Frank moves to lean against the wall beside her. Doesn’t look at her, not beyond a couple of stolen glances, just to check the shape she’s in. She looks good. She looks  _ herself _ . He relaxes, feeling that deceptively small scar on his head itch just that little bit. Dinah’s hair has grown out. It’s curlier at this length. Her skin has its glow back. She still has that obsessive fire in her eyes. Good.

“You doin’ ok M- … Dinah?”  Frank wrinkles his nose and squints into the middle distance and tries not to look too concerned by his own question. She nods, smiling in appreciation at his self correction.  
“Yeah.” She nods. “I’m not experiencing too many side effects. It’s healed well. I’m about as lucky as you, I guess.” She smiles. “Though I had you there to hold my skull together.”  
“You already thanked me for that.” Frank says gruffly. “Once was already more than I needed. How are your folks?” He says, pointedly.  
“My Dad actually asked about you the other day.” She looks away, then, maybe to fake nonchalance. There’s nothing to be done, they’ve shared too much. “Wanted to know how recovery is going.”  
“You can tell him not so bad, thanks to their help.” Frank says. She doesn’t need to know the details.  
“That’s good.” Dinah says lightly, on the surface casual but Frank can sense something  _ else _ , there. “I guess you’ve recovered from worse.”  
“Guess I have.”  
“You must have taken a lot of damage in your time, right?”  
“I take it this isn’t just a social call to enquire about my health?”  
“I’ve heard whisperings.” Madani looks right at him then, mouth tightening. “Nothing is happening in any official channels as far as I know, but. You aren’t going to retain your cover forever if you keep it up.” Frank fidgets under her gaze.  
“What have the whispers been saying, huh?” He’s tired. So tired.  
“Tell me you haven’t taken on an  _ apprentice _ , Castle.  
“No! God no, it’s not...” the idea gets his heart hammering immediately.  
“Then who are you fighting with, if that’s not what it is?”  
“It’s not like that. I. Can’t just let her get herself killed.”  
“Castle.”  
“No, listen, listen, she’s gonna do it with or without me, she’s not in a good place. This way I can keep an eye on her.”  
“That how you’re spinning it?” Madani says sharply.  
“It’s the truth, Madani.”  
“I told you. It’s Dinah.” She says, suddenly smooth and Frank feels like an idiot. She’s only testing him.  
“Do what you have to, Castle.” Madani says. “But do it for the right reasons.”

***

Frank won’t let himself consider why he is so nervous to meet with Matt. He feels himself shifting compulsively on his feet. Knows he must look grim and a little scary, one of his eyes is darkened from a hit he took two nights ago. One pedestrian clearly crosses the street so as not to pass him, head down, walking quickly. He can’t stifle the agitation, though he tries. Knows it’s visible. 

Strangely, the moment Matt turns the corner into Frank’s view, he feels a sort of calm settle over him. It makes no obvious sense, so he ignores the feeling.

“Hey.” He says, before Matt is in regular earshot. Matt grins by way of answer. Follows the pavement with his cane to where Frank is stood. He didn’t notice the day before, but Matt actually looks quite a lot thinner than he was when he came to his apartment. He doesn’t mention it. Rachel comes to mind and Frank carefully files this observation away. Needs to keep it under consideration..

They manage to fall into step with conversation as easily as their feet synchronise once Matt’s hand is settled comfortably against Frank’s elbow.

It’s…  _ nice _ .

They talk a lot about not very much. It feels different from talking to anyone else. Matt isn’t waiting to find an edge of him. Frank isn’t afraid to let something slip. Thinks, maybe, it’s the same for Matt. He’s a little more stiff around the shoulders than he could be, at first, but then he loosens up. Soon he’s throwing his head back laughing at a joke, trying not to choke on his fries.

Maybe Matt drinks more coffee than is strictly healthy. Still, he’s grinning freely as he recounts the tale of one of the many parties he and Foggy gatecrashed as students.  
“It was a  _ fundraiser?  _ I’m surprised those rich bastards didn’t find something to charge you with.” Frank shakes his head in disbelief.  
“One of the organisers had a son who was. Well if Foggy’s heart rate was anything to go by, he was pretty attractive. He smelled good too.”  
“He  _ smelled _ — you’re gonna have to talk me through that one of these days.”  
“Oh gladly.” Matt grins sharply and Frank feels his own face immediately glow. Fights it. Matt isn’t flirting with him. He’s joking. He’s just joking. God, he’s really imprinted on this guy. Matt is still speaking. “I enjoyed uh. Winning his favour. He snuck us out the back door before security got to us. Foggy was so relieved to get out of there unscathed he wasn’t even mad.”  
“Must be nice. Having a best friend for that long.” Frank says it casually but Matt’s face pinches and he shifts uncomfortably.

“I’m not so sure we’re  _ best _ friends just at the moment.” Matt says carefully, after a moment.  
“Nelson not adjusting so well, huh?”  
“No it’s. He’s  _ trying. _ He’s trying harder than I have any right to. I just. I don’t think it’s been the same for us since he found out who I am. I’m not sure he should care about me as much as he once did. Still, he’s in my life.” Matt shrugs. “I don’t want him anywhere else.”  
“Hey if he wants to be in you life.” Frank says, tries to keep it light through all the guilt he’s accumulated as background noise. All the people around him who care so much that he can’t see  _ why.  
_ “Yeah.” Matt doesn’t sound convinced.

After a moment, Matt shakes himself.  
“I’m not  _ alone _ though. Jessica has been… I think she gets it, a bit. Not the same as you do.” Matt’s head twitches. Frank gets a sensation that he’s nervously reading him for a reaction.  
“Good, that’s good.”  
“You’d like her. She’s grumpy.”  
“Grumpy?” Frank snorts. “Like I’m  _ grumpy?”  
_ “Yeah.” Matt’s smiling again.

*

Frank walks Matt home. They’re mid conversation, telling each other about the wildly dangerous things they got up to as children that really explain a lot.  
“And you never fell and died.” Frank waves a hand. “Ma always said I’d kill myself climbing those water towers and there you were, blind, vaulting over the things when you were eleven.”  
“To me fair to me, my mentor- if you could call him that- was insane.” Matt says it all too casually in Frank’s opinion, but he lets it slide. Doesn’t pursue it. Senses there’s a thread there that isn’t appropriate to pull just yet.  
“I think you got me beat.” Frank tells him. “Most dangerous thing I ever did as a kid was climb out the window onto the tree in the backyard every night for about two years.”  
“What were you  _ doing?”  _ Matt laughs.  
“Best friend had shitty folks. Snuck out of our rooms to terrorise the local park.”  
“What happened to him?”  
“Her. Folks moved out of state.”  
“Oh.”  
“Yeah lost touch after that. I’m not the best at uh. Letters. Used to drive Ri nuts. Got there in the end.” Frank scratches the back of his head. “Didn’t mean to kill the mood.” He manages a bit of a smile. “I’m more of an uh, a talker. Guess you know that.” Frank says. Matt’s hand slips a little more tightly around his arm.  
“Guess I do.”

The conversation is a little quieter after that. Softer.  _ Warmer, _ even. Matt’s hand is almost moving against his arm as he tells him of a man he saved, last week. Frank has a few stories of his own. They aren’t quite war stories. They don’t go dark enough to be uncomfortable. It’s good things. Strange things.

And then.

Matt freezes. His body goes rigid, his feet plant themselves abruptly. Frank is almost jerked backwards by the shoulder. Matt releases him as if Frank’s arm is burning him and takes a horribly compulsive step backwards. His breathing is shallow and too fast.  
“Matt?” Frank murmurs. He reaches for him but Matt flinches backwards.  
“She’s there.”   
“Who?”  
“One of them. One of them who, she…” Frank looks around wildly, following Matt as he backs out of the way of the street crowd to the edge of a building.  
“I can smell her but I can’t, I don’t know where it’s coming from…” Matt turns his was wildly and Frank returns to sweeping the crowd with his eyes.  
“There. Ahead. A nun.” He murmurs. Matt presses himself backwards against the glass fronted building behind him. The nun doesn’t seem to be there for Matt. She’s milling with the crowd, isn’t looking for them. He can’t see much of her face. She’s younger than he maybe imagined from Matt’s talk of nuns in his apartment.

“Wanna get out of here?” Frank takes his arm. Matt resists for a moment and then allows Frank to lead him back the way they came.

They all but run away. Matt is silent and tight lipped, face hardened. Once they’re a safe distance away, Matt turns away from Frank, supports himself on a street lamp and stands too still and too quiet, face bowed and hidden.

“She wasn’t here for us. You sure it was her?”  
“Yes of course I’m fucking sure.” Matt spits out.  
“Alright. Look, whatever happened to you—“  
“ _ Don’t  _ you don’t know,  _ I  _ don’t know just, fucking leave it.” Matt pushes himself away from the street light and paces down the street. Frank follows.  
“Wait, Matt.”  
“Don’t follow me!” Matt rounds on him.  
“You can’t just leave this.” Frank says.  
“And you’re such an  _ expert _ ?”  
“I just…”  
“Well don’t.  _ Don’t.” _ Matt snarls. “Don’t follow me.” He stalks away.

Frank thinks about following him, but the idea is stalled by a sudden vision of Rachel, tired and bleeding. Frank watches Matt move out of sight around the corner. He pushes his hands into his pockets and makes himself walk away.

***

Matt knows that when he puts the suit on that night, earlier than he usually starts, it’s to block out the noise.

The noise is  _ rising _ . There’s nowhere to hide. Even his own mind isn’t safe. It’s hard enough to stifle the horror in the almost-remembered snatches of pain.

It’s easy enough to find the destruction that Rachel has left behind. He knows the warning signs well enough by now. It’s almost the same as… no. Can’t think of Frank. Don’t think about Frank.

The mass takedown approach leaves behind a power vacuum. Power vacuums mean blood.

He’s fighting, knuckles bloody and aching, when suddenly, there’s a wave of expensive perfume and someone at his back.  
“Looks like you’re working on the same situation I’ve found, huh, Murdock?” He ducks a baseball bat and spins to kick a gun out of the hand of one man.  
“Trish Walker I assume?” He says. She laughs dangerously and he feels her weaving and landing a brutal set of moves, efficiency that he’s rarely known anywhere. He’ll have to remember to ask her where she learned this stuff.

She’s holding her own. Not as experienced in a group of threats as he is perhaps, he can tell by her movements. But, once he’s been following her for a while, there’s something… something about the way she moves. The way she impossibly dodges, moving too quickly for his senses to follow, at times. Maybe he’ll have to ask her about that too.

“Sirens.” Matt gets close enough to whisper.  
“Let’s bounce.” Trish grins, he can hear it in her voice, and then they run.

 

They’re panting and out of breath on a rooftop, after. Or… well,  _ Matt  _ is. Trish paces restlessly. Matt leans against a wall to catch his breath.  
“You have powers?” He asks her.  
“Long story.”  
“Right, well. Whatever that was you’re good in a fight.”  
“About that. I think I know where our friend Rachel is going to be next. “  
“You want to stop her?”  
“Tomorrow night. You in?” Trish sounds and moves as if she’d ready for it right now. Matt thinks of Frank. Pushes that away at once.  
“I’m in.” He says, because if nothing else, he knows he has to keep moving.

 

***

 

“Frank. That trouble I always find? I need your help.” Frank’s moving before she’s finished speaking. The wind is crackling Karen’s microphone. Her voice is hushed but tense.  
“Tell me it’s not Rachel.” Frank says. He hasn't gone after her for a while.  
“It’s Rachel.” Karen says tightly. Frank lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding in a frustrated rush.  
“Where are you?” He asks as he seizes his coat, yanks it on the with phone wedged between his shoulder and ear.  
“I’m on the way to your apartment, Trish… I think Trish and Matt are off on their own.”  
“ _ What?”  
_ “They might be trying to stop Rachel doing something stupid, something  _ else _ stupid.”

Frank throws his keys at Karen and takes her to the van. Jumps in the passenger side so she gets the message to drive.  
“Your girl gone off behind your back..?”  
“No she often goes out it’s become  _ normal _ I… I shouldn’t have let this happen…”  
“She’s a grown up, Karen.”  
“She is but she. She has her problems. This stuff isn’t. You know it’s not  _ healthy _ .”  
“Yeah I know.”

“I’m not mad at you.” Karen says suddenly.  
“I think maybe you should be.” Frank sighs. Remember’s Karen’s gaze in that elevator, the only steady thing in the whole world, checking him over. After Lewis. After she  _ saw _ . When he joined Rachel in that office building, she saw again. It’s all too close to the time he drove her to a diner to use her as bait. The time he drive a car into the one she was driving, more to kill Schoonover than to save her. Karen’s eyes look pale in the dull orange of the street lamps that washes over her in waves. They’re blazing with intensity, fixed on the road.  
“That’s not how we work. You know that.” She shrugs. “It’s just more lost justice. It was too much like losing  _ your _ justice.”  
“I went after that in my own way.”  
“Yes, but it didn’t satisfy me then, either. I wanted  _ more _ for you I wanted it  _ public _ and that wasn’t what  _ you _ wanted but I always felt as if I missed the window to get that justice for you.”  
“It was nothing you did, Karen.”  
“Maybe not but that’s always how it’ll always sit in my head. This time we came so  _ close _ .”  
“Yeah.”  
“But I need you to know that don’t resent you for helping Rachel. We don’t judge each other. That’s how we work.” She glances at him, almost nervous but not quite. “That’s how we’re family.” She says firmly. Frank gives her a quick sidelong glance, enough to see the determined set of her face.  
“Yeah. I guess that’s how this works.” Frank tries to smile. Knows he doesn’t deserve this. As always, has to trust Karen’s decision here, to stay in his life, and not think about it too much.

“So Patsy…”  
“Urgh god don’t call her that.”

“It’s just, in my head, Lisa went through a phase with the reruns, Ri never approved.”  
“ _ Please  _ don’t mention reruns.” Karen groans. Frank laughs.  
“Ok, Trish?”  
“Trish.” Karen confirms.  
“Right. Trish. She’s what? A vigilante now?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Shit. Can’t move in this town without running into one these days, huh.”  
“Doesn’t seem like it.”  
“She often team up with Matt? Doesn’t seem like him.”  
“No it’s just happened I haven’t had a chance to confront him about this.”  
“He’s in a bad place for it.”  
“Yeah that might be why.” Karen is driving quite a bit over the speed limit, now. She turns a corner rather more aggressively than necessary.

*

“Stay low.” Frank murmurs. They’re moving between packing containers.  
“Most I can figure out from Trish’s notes is that someone is taking advantage of the lack of players to sneak through a big shipment of  _ something _ . Could be arms could be  _ people _ for all I know.”

They don’t have to search for long. Gunshots steer them in the right direction, and then it’s as if they have walked directly into a fight.

Frank makes sure Karen is covered, taking in the situation as he does so.

Matt and Trish are flipping about around one packing container that looks like a new arrival. Maybe that they came to claim when Trish and Matt ambushed them. Looks that way.

Frank gets eyes on Rachel moments later, moving toward the group at the packing container with her gun drawn.  
“She could hit them.” Karen warns. Frank nods. He waves for her to stay and goes for Rachel.

“Didn’t invite me this time.” Frank murmurs from the shadows and Rachel swings her weapon on him before she realises who it is.  
“Didn’t need the distraction.” She grumbles.  
“Distraction?”  
“You care too much.” She spits out. Frank glances over at Matt’s silhouette and tries not to laugh, of all things.  
“You’ve been drawing too much attention working alone.” He waves a hand at the two insane vigilantes who are making short, nonlethal work of the men at the packing container.  
“You think I need you?” She says furiously.  
“Rachel, come on.”  
“You’re not my fucking  _ dad _ , Castle. You’re done. I let you help but that doesn’t mean we’re a team.”  
“You think I’m here for  _ you? _ ” Frank snaps at her. “I came to stop you getting those two caught in your crossfire.”  
“They’re interfering.”

“Yeah, they do that as a rule. They don’t deserve to die for it. You rush in there now to put down the people they’re kicking the shit out of you risk getting them killed. Since they’re here, keep a good vantage point. Cover them.”  
“You’re so fucking sanctimonious—“ She tries to shove past him but he grabs her shoulders and holds her still.  
“I’m not I’m really  _ not  _ just listen to me, you gotta do this smart, those people down there? They want to help you.”  
“I don’t  _ need _ help.” She shrugs off his hands.

Frank catches movement out of the corner of his eye and freezes.  
“Cole. Did you clear the area?”  
“Yes. And it’s  _ Alves _ .” She snarls.  
“Get down.” He barks. They both duck. “Spare me the Rose Dawson bullshit. Someone called in reinforcements.”   
“Mighta caught that sooner if you hadn’t been too busy lecturing me.”  
“Help me cover them.” Frank says.

They’re snipers, is the thing. By the time Frank and Rachel are running to take them out, there are shots ringing out left and right. Frank tackles one of them and chokes him out., He glances back and Trish and Matt, having taken down the last of the guards, are trying to take cover around the lone packing container. Frank spots Rachel making a charge at what he hopes is the final sniper.

Matt gets shot, staggers backwards, Frank takes the guy out and...  
Murdock goes into the water.

_ Too late too late too late... _

Frank runs. Barely processes the action. Hardly considers the trust he’s throwing at Rachel, to take out whoever is left. Frank struggles out of his vest as he goes, ripping open buckles and shrugging out of his shirt. No way he's getting Matt out of the water loaded down by his soaking wet gear.

Karen out if nowhere and… Patsy-- no, Trish-- are on the edge of the water.  
“He came up and then went under again.” Karen tells him hurriedly. Points at the water. Frank just about sees a dark shape through the gloom before it fades out of sight.

Frank yanks at his laces, kicks off his boots and strips off his pants one after the other and then he jumps.

His body jerks and shudders unbidden against the shock of the cold. It takes him a moment to force his limbs to kick and push and get his head back up to air.

Frank reaches in the water, buffered by the waves, coming up to shout his name, diving again, reaching… reaching…

His hand brushes something and he grabs and pulls and kicks and breaks the surface of the water with a gasp. Matt’s body twists and turns in the water. Frank’s heart jolts and he struggles with his body, trying to make sure his head is out of the water, thinking he's spasming, drowning.

It soon becomes clear that Matt is trying to push him away.

“ _ Matt!”  _ Frank splutters. “It’s  _ me  _ let me--” they're both pulled under by a wave and Frank kicks them back above the water as best he can against Matt’s flailing.

Somehow, his spare hand finds the edge and he drags them towards a set of steps.

Nostrils full of stinking of sea and mud and rotting dock land wood and rust, Frank drags Matt onto land, grunting with the effort. Matt is thinner than he was the last time he had to carry him, but pulling someone even the same size as himself out of  _ water  _ is slow going and Matt is  _ fighting _ …

He rolls them onto land and then sets to work.

“Murdock!” Frank roars, struggling against Matt’s shoving. He's pushing him away, yelling and choking on the water still gurgling from his throat. “Murdock stop!” Frank manages to get his shoulders in his hands, but Matt is still fighting him.  
“Leave me! Stop-- stop--” Matt’s yelling as soon as he can speak and trying to elbow Frank away.  
“You got  _ shot _ Matt, Matt listen to me I'm trying to  __ help!”  
“No! Leave me alone I don't need, I don't want-- don't save me don't--” Matt babbles, wheezing, trembling with cold, pushing at Frank’s chest, weaker now.  
“I  __ am gonna check it didn't hit a part of this thing that ain't bulletproof you hear me?”  
“No, no--”  
“You ain't bleeding to death on my watch, Murdock!” Frank gets past his flailing and feels along his abdomen. Matt hisses out a groan of pain through his teeth but there's no hole in the suit, there's no blood.  
“You're ok, you're ok.” Frank breathes out relieved.

Matt’s  _ not _ ok though. He's furious, still fighting Frank, hands slapping against his chest. Frank releases him and rolls to the side, shoves himself upright. Matt struggles to push himself into a half sitting position. He's growling with rage with every breath, shaking with that and the cold.

The engine roars into focus and the lights blind Frank for a moment, he staggers to put himself between Matt and the van, only then Karen’s voice is closing in before he even gets his eyes to adjust. He wants to tell her not to jump out of moving vehicles but he never gets a chance, because she's muttering,  
“ _ God _ Frank.” And wrapping him in a coat he supposes must be her own.  
“Matt.” He says, but then Trish is there, navigating Matt’s protestations and yanking him upright.  
“Stop fighting me or I swear to god I'll knock you on your ass.” Frank hears her say before Karen, arm around him, manages to steer him towards the back of the van. He swallows, pulls the coat more tightly around his shoulders. Very aware that his shirt is off and Karen is  _ right _ there. Knows his torso is an encyclopaedia of damage sustained and dubiously healed.

Matt bundles himself into the corner, brow heavy,  _ angry _ , and Frank only gets close enough to remind him that he's there. Karen dumps a blanket around Matt while Trish starts the van and accelerates out of the open. That’s when Frank spots his gear in a heap in the corner.   
“Thanks for grabbing my vest.” He tells Karen, finding his pants and righting them so he can put them on. He's  _ freezing _ .  
“Wouldn't want someone to find that lying around and sell it off.” She smiles. Weird thing to be joking about but Frank appreciates the effort.

“Rachel?” Frank grunts.  
“Trish, pull over.” Karen calls and the van screeches to a stop. Trish leaves the engine idling.  
“Find her.” Karen tells Trish. Frank senses tension there. Trish leaves. Frank turns to Matt but his eyes are much too vacant.

Cold water still trickles down his back but Frank tugs his shirt over his head in an attempt to fend off some of his own shaking. Relaxes a bit once he knows Karen can't  _ see _ . She soon shuts them in the back of the van and climbs into the driver’s seat.  
“Matt.” Frank says cautiously.  
“Don't.” Matt snaps out, voice trembling.  
“Ok.” Frank says softly.

“She’s gone.” Trish says, sliding into the passenger side. Frank nods, Of course she has. There are sirens now.  
“Take us to Matt’s apartment.” Karen asks Trish. Her hand is on her arm. The tension has lifted slightly. Frank catches them sharing a look and quickly averts his eyes. Frank settles, keeping Matt at the edge of his vision and leans back against the wall of the van.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Matt. I actually wrote that part months ago inspired by the way Defenders ended.   
> Can finally say that the title is from Never Let Me Go by Florence and the Machine which also partly inspired the turn of events.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank gets Matt home and helps as best he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Matt is not in a good place and Frank talks about not being in a good place so please heed the tags.

Frank leads Matt into his own apartment this time. He’s cold and trembling and half vacant with horror. Frank grips him tightly, just to show him that he's there. Matt allows it. He's in a bad place. Frank can see it all over his face.

Frank waves Trish and Karen to Matt’s dining table. Needs to speak to Matt alone.  
“I'll make coffee.” Karen says, and Frank appreciates the thought even if her coffee is kinda shit. He nods and leads Matt into the bathroom. Sits him on the toilet seat and goes to retrieve some clothes.

“Ok. You have to get out of that suit. I gotta check there's nothing bad going on where you _got shot_ and then you're gonna get under a blanket, and we’ll talk in the morning.” Matt doesn't move for several moments.

“I'm just bruised.” Matt says, voice quiet but hard.  
“Forgive me if I'm not gonna just take your word for that given the circumstances.” Frank tries to say it sternly but he finds himself kneeling in front of him, brushing his fingers against the back of Matt’s hand. Instinctively wanting to smooth the rough edges of him. Feels what Matt is feeling somewhere in his gut. Knows where all this anger, frustration is coming from, knows how it must hurt.

“Please get dressed.” Frank says softly. “And then we can talk if you need to. But you're cold. You gotta get warm.”

Again, Matt is silent for some time. Then his head jerks on his neck.  
“Fine. Fine.” He snaps.  
“Ok. Good.” Frank stands and leaves the room, shuts the door and breathes out a long breath.

“You should change, Frank.” Karen calls across the room, and yeah, his hands and feet, his ears even, are numb. He blinks at her, nods.  
“Yeah. Thanks.” Kinda painfully aware that he's barely thought about him own body since he was semi naked at the docks.

Pulls on some of Matt’s sweatpants and a shirt, in time for Matt to call him at a tiny croak.

Mostly he's just relieved that Matt wants him there.

When he opens the bathroom door,  Matt is sitting on the toilet seat in dry clothes. His back bends in a slouch, as if he's weighed down with something unimaginably heavy, head sagging towards his knees. Frank kneels in front of him again.  
“Can I check your ribs?” He reaches hesitantly and Matt nods. Sits up just enough to let Frank look, but he doesn't raise his head.

His skin is still damp and clammy. There's a bruise blossoming across it, but he was telling the truth so far as Frank can tell. He's not badly hurt. Frank blows out a long breath, drops Matt’s shirt and smooths it out.

They sit in silence because Matt doesn’t seem ready to move yet, head slumped towards Frank.  
“I had no idea.” Frank murmurs.  
“What?” Matt says flatly.  
“How much you were hurting. I'm so sorry.” Frank reaches to touch his fingertips against the back of Matt’s hand. Focuses on those tiny points of contact. Matt shrugs limply.  
“Don’t. It’s not on you. It’s _not…_ I didn't know either. Not until… I was in the water. I didn't know I didn't want to…” a tiny pained sound slips out of his throat.  
“You didn't plan this?” Frank asks him in the smallest whisper, so low that nobody but Matt would be able to hear if they were listening in. The approach works. Matt doesn't close up or fly off the handle, as Frank half expected.  
“No. Didn't… occur to me it’s…” his voice fades off into a strangled croak.  
“Yeah.” Frank very lightly closes his grasp around Matt’s wrist and feels his own shoulders unclench a little when Matt’s fingers curl around his in return.  
“You can tell me, ok? I’ve been there.” Frank whispers. “If you’ve thought about this before, can you tell me? Please?”  
“No I swear, Frank, you..?” Matt’s eyes are wide and reeling. He grabs at Frank’s other wrist.  
“Shh-Shh-Shh, you know I was uh. Course I thought about it. And there was more than one time where I coulda just… let it happen.” Frank says.  
“Frank…” Matt gasps out, fingers tightening around Frank’s wrists. Wrists locked into position like that is _not_ a good sensation but Frank barely registers it.  
“Hey I’m ok now yeah? I just want you to know I _understand._ You're ok. You're gonna be ok.” Frank says, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. Half sure Matt is going to react with anger. Ready for it, even. Matt just shakes his head, breath shuddering, face screwing up.  
“I swear I wasn't planning anything I…” his voice breaks. His eyelids pinch shut and he drops his head even further. Frank tightens his grip as Matt’s fingers squeeze his wrists. Strong. Miraculously strong. “Never even wanted to leave, except with _her_ when she asked me to run with her and I would have done but then she… and we _couldn't_ …”  
“I believe you.” Frank tells him, more firmly than he's spoken yet, because Matt’s drifting, Matt’s talking about _her_ and that means he's fucked up enough to have to.  
“It was just so, it's so _loud_ in, in the city, in my _head_ .” He gulps out in a shaking whisper, as if someone is listening. “Hit the water and… just, it just all _stopped_ there was _peace_ … I can't take it I can't...”

Matt’s shoulders shake with sobs and Frank hardly knows how to help him. All he’s sure of, is that he knows how Matt’s chest feels right now, heavy and gaping. He knows the world is swallowing him, his breath racing as he tries to comprehend it all.

He's solid and alive under Frank’s hand, as he throws caution to the wind and kneels up, wraps his arms around Matt’s back. Matt’s face presses against his neck, scrunched up and damp, and he grabs Frank’s shirt to anchor him there.  
“You know.” Matt chokes into Frank’s skin, pressing his body against him. Frank’s heart lurches. “You _know_ this.”  
“I know.” Frank confirms softly. It’s a lot of contact. His skin feels on fire with it. The inverse of the cold water. A shock to his touch-deprived system. He almost wants to pull away except that he can’t possibly.  
“Please, please don't go.” Matt begs him, and Frank doesn't know if he means from the apartment or from this life  
“I'm right here, Red. Right here.”

Frank holds onto him for as long as Matt won’t let go. He can feel Matt’s body shaking against him, but by the time he can convince his arms to loosen, he’s a little steadier at least. Frank persuades him to bed with soft touches, coaxing, and manages to get him comfortable. Strokes his arm. Can’t seem to quell the need to comfort, now.  
“You tell me if you need anything ok?”  
“Can you… sleep here? With me?” Matt fidgets and frowns as if he’s asking the world.  
“Yeah, course I can.” Frank murmurs. “I need to speak to Karen and I’ll be right back in, ok?” Matt seems comforted by Frank’s words. Frank doesn’t know what to do with that. When Matt speaks again his voice is strained and painful.  
“I'm sorry. Sorry I was… angry. Didn't mean it.”  
“S’nothing sweetheart.” Frank squeezes his shoulder. “I get it.” He reaches, on impulse,  to touch Matt’s chest, where it hurts in himself, when he's too full of rage to think straight. “I get it.”

Karen and Trish are waiting when Frank comes into the living space. Karen wordlessly hands him a coffee and he tries not to look too heavy when he sits at the table.

“He's ok.” Frank says and hopes it's only half a lie.  
“You need to be there for him.” Karen says, eyes intense.  
“I know.” Frank says quietly.  
“Don't let him push you away. He’ll try.” Trish tells him  
“I'm not goin’ anywhere.”  
“Frank. You doing ok?” Karen’s eyes are heavy.  
“Yeah.” Frank says, probably too quickly. Finds himself rubbing the back of his head and makes himself lower his hand again.

The women are sitting slightly tilted towards each other.  
“So uh, how long this been going on?” Frank smiles. Feels like he hasn't smiled for ten years. This is something good. Something he should have asked about sooner.  
“Oh.” Karen picks up Trish’s hand almost absent mindedly. “Longer than either of us will admit.” She smiles.

“You just hold onto each other, yeah?” Frank says gently, knowing full well that Trish’s adventuring with Matt could put some strain on them when they get around to talking about it.  
“How long has _this_ been going on?” Karen leans towards him, hands clasped around her mug of coffee.  
“With Matt?” Frank can't take her direct gaze for long and drops his eyes.

“Could always talk to him, yeah. We… trust each other and it,uh. It just… became more than that I don't know.”  
“Do you love him?” Karen’s voice suddenly sounds like she's moved to the next room and Frank watches his hands shake with a detached sense of confusion.  
“I… uh…”

For a split second, he's gone.

Then the real world and _that day_ tangle around his head and the sounds and smells of Matt’s apartment come back into focus, like turning up a volume control from off to loud. One batch. Two batch. Ok.

And he's angry, so angry with himself that all it took was that one simple question, but he’s winded and spinning. Clenches his fists to hide the shakes.

It's not the end of the world. He's not going to die from this. And Matt… didn't Matt’s body, pressed to his, feel like home? Or, _a_ home.

Somewhere warm and safe that he never thought he could ever be again. Somewhere he _gave up_.

 

Makes himself speak. “Not sure I can uh. Give him much.” He forces the words out one after the other, but it's too late. Karen saw.  
“I'm sorry…” she whispers. He's not looking directly at her eyes but he can see the devastation on her face from here.  
“Not your fault. I might just.” He nods.  
“And it scares you.” Karen’s too knowing. She’s seen him scared,  _really_ scared, enough times to know what it looks like. When they first met. When he told her he was having trouble remembering _them._ When he told her he couldn’t bare to lose her. When a maniac had a bomb at her back and a gun to her head. The fact that this measures up really is a testimony of just how fucked up he’s gotten himself.  
“Course it does.” He rumbles out a broken sounding laugh. Scrubs a hand through his hair, kneads his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Course it fuckin’ does.” Can feel Trish’s eyes on him, but for some reason it doesn't matter as much as it could. “This ain't gonna end up on one of your radio shows, huh?” He tries to grin, reaches for the charm that used to come so easily, but it doesn't work out.

“How could I manage that when you haven’t been seen in the city for months?” She says with a soft little smile. Frank expects a rush of shame at the sight of Trish’s pity, but he finds he's just too tired.  
“Appreciate it, ma’am.”  
“Is he always so charming?” Trish smirks at Karen.  
“Yes.” She rolls her eyes. “Even when he's on the run and his face is half mashed up. It's maddening.”

They leave once Karen is satisfied that Frank can cope.

Matt is thankfully sleeping when he slides into bed beside him.

 

***

 

“Are we going to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” Karen says. She’s driving. Trish watches her eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. Trish watches her in silence for several moments, pursing her lips. The set of Karen’s face is tugging at her heart and she knows, she _knows_ it’s because the look her face is reminding her _vividly_ of Jessica. It hurts. It’s making her _angry_ actually.

“Talk to me.” She snaps.  
“About what.”  
“You’re pissed off about something.” Trish is really fighting to keep her voice from raising, now.  
“Oh yeah? Why would I be pissed off, Trish? You tell me.”  
“That’s what you want? You fucking passive aggressive… am I supposed to guess?”  
“Why not.” Karen snaps, lurching the car around a turning.  
“Fine. You don’t like my adventuring?”  
“ _That’s_ what we’re calling it?”  
“You’re pissed at me because I’m having all the fun? You’re not finding all this trouble for yourself for once?” Trish feels her voice rising with a petty sort of spite and she hates it, hates it.  
“Yes Trish, that must be exactly it!” Karen snorts out a bitter, angry laugh. “I resent you because I haven’t been _kidnapped_ or _shot at_ or nearly blown to shit recently!”  
“Then what—“  
“You’re determined to make a fucking argument.” Karen snaps. “You are. You’re just as pissed off as I am right now.”  
“No I’m…” Trish frowns stubbornly. Alright. Karen might be right about that. Still! Karen is angry too.

Trish sits in fuming silence. She always did hate being called out on her bullshit. That isn’t Karen’s fault  
“Maybe I’m angry.” Trish says, making her voice stay reasonable. She’s had years of practice at that, after all. “But not with you.”

Karen drives, face fixed and eyes still narrowed.  
“I’m a little mad at you.” Karen admits.  
“Right. Ok.” Trish says, trying her best not to get angry just at the simple _concept_ of that.  
“It isn’t entirely rational.” Karen says sighing. “You couldn’t have known Matt was... You couldn’t have known.”  
“Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it for granted, that he was ok.” Trish lets the words spill out of her. Matt shouting and fighting on the ground is raw in her mind. There's guilt. She can untangle that much of her own feelings, at least.  
“He’s a grown man. You couldn’t have known.” Karen says heavily.  
“Look I… I think I’ve been taking… all of it for granted. I think that’s why _I’m_ angry.”

“Jesus.” Karen hisses out. “Why couldn’t we just be in touch with our emotions like normal people?” She’s smiling now. Trish nudges her arm.  
“And keep my emotions anywhere near me?” Trish makes a face of mock disgust. “No thanks.”

“It’s the powers, Karen.” Trish finds herself staring at her hands. Her heart begins to plunge as the problem takes shape in her mind, as if it’s slowly rising out of the mist that the fight created, earlier. “I thought I wanted this. I thought. I thought once I _had_ this I…” her voice is getting choked. Karen looks at her briefly, eyes wide, startled before she gets them back on the road again.  
“Trish you’re ok—“  
“Yeah, I’m fine, but… he’s not.” She doesn’t know why it hurts so much. Why it’s hurting _her_ like this.  
“No. He’s not. I’m not so sure he ever was.” Karen says heavily. “Nothing about this is simple, Trish.” Trish nods, sniffs.  
“I’m ok I think I’m just. This is harder than I thought it would be. I was naive.”

“I was never under any illusion that this was healthy. Going out and doing what he does. What you do. But I thought… I fooled myself.” Karen says. “I let it go too far. I could have at least tried.”  
“Hey. You said it worked with Frank.”  
“Frank’s… _Frank._ ” Karen drives in silence. “I don’t know if I helped _him_ either.”  
“You helped me.” Trish says. “All of this stuff, it isn’t your fault. It was my choice.”  
“No.” Karen sighs. “But maybe I could have stopped it. Seen that this was inevitable.”

They drive in silence. Trish tries her best not to feel like a scolded child. This isn’t about her.

“It’s not too late, thanks to you. You did the right thing.” Trish says eventually, turns to Karen. “Are you going to stop me?” She can’t help adding, that, a little desperately. Knows the itch for trouble in the back of her mind won’t rest easy.  
“I can’t stop you.”  
“But you want me to.” Trish says quietly. Karen squints at her briefly.  
“No I. I think I can trust you not to hurt yourself, Trish. I won’t lie I’m going to be watching. I’m always going to be terrified you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. You can’t shut me out. If you shut me out I can’t do this.”  
“I would never do that to you.” Trish says gently.  
“It’s not the same. Foggy and I, we couldn't see what was happening to Matt because we didn’t _want_ to.” Karen says, suddenly strong, intense. “We didn’t want to lose him again so badly that we were in _denial_ of the situation. Trish, it’s trust. I’ll trust you to show me if it’s hurting you and you have to trust me to tell you if I think you’re hurting yourself.”  
“Deal.” It’s all Trish can say. Karen is practically shaking with intensity.

When the car is parked, Trish jumps out and wraps Karen in her arms before she can even leave the driver’s seat. Karen holds her, firm and strong. Her arms are so warm sometimes that Trish can hardly believe it.  
“I know that I am prone to losing my shit, so it means a lot, ok? I know I. I know I don’t always show it.” Trish says.  
“Sorry if I was angry.” Karen says eventually. “I’m scared for Matt.”  
“I know. I’m sorry too.”

 

***

 

Frank wakes with a start (he always wakes with a start) and Matt has one arm wrapped around his waist. Oh. He’s too hot, actually, but he can’t seem to bring himself to move. Matt's face is pressed against his chest. Frank can feel his lips smushed against him through his shirt.

For a moment he’s breathless. Not in a bad way, for once. The whole thing has him a little knocked out of joint. It’s absurd. Red, this close. That he got into bed with him like that was an ordinary thing to do.

_Do you love him?_

Matt shifts in his sleep, sighs gently. He’s a solid weight against Frank’s ribs. Absolutely lax. Calm and heavy. Frank gets a warm rush in his chest, unbidden. Matt is so peaceful like this. He wants to touch his hair but he knows that will only wake him. Frank just lies there and listens to Matt’s slow and steady sleep breathing.

When Matt moves, he sits up quickly, scrambles away to sit on the edge of the bed without speaking. Frank feels winded by the loss of warmth. He sits up slowly, watches Matt sit with his back to him.

“Doesn’t have to be anything.” Frank says, means it to come out gruff but misses an edge. Matt turns to him, head tilting. Matt’s cheeks are a little flushed. His eyes look beautifully hazel and deep and opened up with sleep. His hair is pillow-ruffled and soft and his frame is outlined by the way his shirt his twisted a little around his torso as he slept. He’s… god he’s just _beautiful._ Frank gets a lurch in his heart when he thinks the words, straightforward, like that. It doesn’t unseat him though. Frank’s more settled than he’s felt in a while actually.

“Maybe it is something.” Frank continues with a shrug. “But If you’re not comfortable with that, it can just be what it is. What you need and no more. Just like last time.”  
“Last time I _wanted_ you to save me.” Matt almost snarls the words. Frank shrugs and nods, pressing his lips together.  
“Yeah, see. I never asked you to save _me.”_ He says, calm, only something’s flaring inside of him and when he speaks again, it rises into a growl in his voice. “I would have let them execute me. Would have let those Irish bastards kick my brains out.” His voice wants to raise and he fights it as best he can. “I never _asked_ you to walk into that hospital and save my life, I never asked you to do that for me but I’m so goddamn grateful, do you get that? I wasn’t back then, but it gave me a _chance_ to get to feel… to get to _want_ to live. _You_ did that for me.”

It shuts Matt up which is the last thing Frank wants.  
“You can hate me right now. I sure hated you.” Frank snorts in exasperation at the guy he was then.

Matt doesn’t speak for a while. When he does his voice is quiet. Tired.  
“I don’t hate you.”

“Listen uh… why are your sheets to soft anyway?” Frank waits in silence. Just when he’s beginning to assume that he’s crossed a line, that no attempt to make this normal will help, Matt takes a breath.  
“It’s not just my hearing that’s… all my other senses are amplified. Cotton feels like sandpaper.” Frank takes that in for a moment. Matt says it factually. As if it’s of no concern.

He’s… _hurt_ Matt. He’s seen him hurt. If his senses are more amplified…  
“Is _pain_ amplified?” Frank says slowly. Feels as if he needs to know. Matt shrugs.  
“Guess so. Been so long I don’t remember what it’s supposed to feel like.”  
“Jesus.” Frank whispers.   
“It’s not a big deal.” Matt says quickly. “I get the silk to give myself a break, that’s all.”  
“That means your clothes…”  
“I zone it out. I manage.” Matt almost snaps at him.  
“I guess I’m just impressed.” Frank shrugs, “I know you could kick my ass if you wanted to, just sounds like a lot of distraction. I respect that.” Doesn’t say _I know it means you’re stronger not weaker_ like he means, but Matt’s shoulders relax so maybe he gets what Frank isn’t saying out loud. Frank tries not to think about the state he found him in the snow. The bruises and breaks. The slashed open skin. How did all of that feel with Matt’s over- sensitivity? How did he come back from the shock Frank found him in when he must have been in more agony than Frank can even imagine? Frank can imagine a lot. _Alter boy_ , his mind says, but the images called into his mind are of the martyrs he remembers seeing pictures of in the church as a child. Saints who died messy, only with those pristine, serene faces. Frank remembers an impulse to avert his eyes from those pictures, only now all he wants to do is stare at Matt until his strength makes some sort of sense.

He tried to _drown_ himself, Frank reminds himself sternly. It isn’t working. Matt shouldn’t have to die for any cause. He shouldn’t be on a pedestal. He doesn’t deserve a body so thoroughly sensitive to the whole mess of the world around him that he has to wrap himself up in softness just for a small guilty respite. It isn’t fair and Frank can clearly see it written all over his face, how much he hates himself for _needing_ even this small comfort.

“Sure, everything you got makes you great at stepping in and helping people when you can.” Frank shrugs. “Doesn’t mean you should suffer for it.” Remembers something Curt said. “It’s not your responsibility.”

“You have a lot to say about it.” Matt says after a while. Frank doesn’t know how to read his tone.  
“Yeah well.” Frank sighs. “I’m just trying to understand.”  
“It’s just. You don’t think like anyone else.” Matt tells him.  
“None of it’s the same, but. Tell me I’m out of line for saying it if that’s what you think, but we’ve both been through a lot. We both know how it feels when things get… dark. When you’re alone.”  
“That’s not out of line.” Matt murmurs. He turns to Frank, then. Squints in his approximate direction. His mouth is pinched and his brow is furrowed, eyes red. He looks _exposed_ , somehow. “I’m not… I’m sorry if I seemed ungrateful. Thank you for… staying. With me.” He’s awkward, but the fact that he has turned to Frank, that he hasn’t hidden his face, speaks volumes.  
“Hey.” Frank shifts closer and reaches out. Matt responds at once, leans back and moves his hand. Frank settles his over Matt’s. It seems meagre contact, only minutes after they were sleeping pressed against each other. “Don’t think I _could_ leave right now, not unless you told me to.” Frank admits, feeling his voice stiffen into gruffness. “Thought I was doing the right thing, before. It was a mistake. I want to be here with you, if you’ll let me.” It tightens his chest to get it out, but he does. He’s breathless when he’s finished. Can’t look at Matt. _Thought I lost you._ He doesn’t say it. He can’t.

Matt turns his hand and Frank feels both of his warm, strong hands clasp around his. He makes himself open his eyes and raise his head. Matt’s face is crumpled, smiling in what almost looks like wonder.  
“Please. I want you here.” His voice is choked.  
“Ok.” Frank gives him a nervous half-smile. “Let’s get dressed, huh?”

*

Karen and Trish arrive with waffles before Matt has showered and dressed.

Frank pretends not to notice that he hardly eats anything. That his smile as Trish tells a joke is only skin deep.

The day passes slowly and quietly. Frank talks dogs when they walk to Matt’s favourite diner. Matt even pets a puppy. His hand seems less tense on Frank’s arm by the time they are opening Matt’s apartment door.  
“You have work tomorrow.” Matt says.  
“I can call in sick if you…”  
“No.” Matt says quickly. “Don’t. I’m not going to fall to pieces.” Frank turns to him. Matt’s trying to smile as he seats himself on the couch. His face twitches just a little. His ribs aren’t in the best shape. They can't have been completely healed to begin with. Frank moves to the freezer automatically.  
“I can trust you to rest up, yeah?” He moves to Matt with an ice pack and Matt’s fingers brush it s if he’s faintly confused by the concept.  
“I appreciate the concern.” Matt says, sighing. “I’m not going out any time soon, you don’t have to be here, watching me. You don’t have to worry about me.” Matt applies the ice pack to his ribs with a grimace.  
“Can’t promise I won’t.” Frank says quietly. “But uh. I trust you not to do anything stupid. That’s not what this is. I’m just. Here. I’d have wanted that, if I could have got my head straight enough to figure out how lonely I was, yeah? Someone there.”

Matt sits in silence for a while, taking in his words. Frank and begins to fidget but Matt takes a deep breath and speaks.  
“Thank you.” He whispers. “I. It does help. You don’t have to skip work for me, though, really.”  
“I don’t have to go either.”  
“Just for my peace of mind. I don’t want to feel like you’re shifting your life to make room for my bullshit, even if that’s not what this is.”  
“Sure.” Frank shrugs. He smiles. “No parkour. There’s your orders.”  
“Understood.” Matt smiles a tiny bit.

 

***

 

The truth is, Matt doesn’t feel so bad as everyone around him seems to think he does. At least, in his mind that’s how it is. He’s _tired_ more than anything. Just tired. Deliberately not thinking about all the help he’s getting. More help than he ever remembers. Any time it comes to mind he dodges it like a fist. Knows he needs it. Knows the guilt is going to hit him at some point but maybe he can dodge it for long enough to get strong enough take it when it comes.

For now though, he only wants to sleep. Somehow though, sleep doesn’t come. He’s frustrated, or would be if he could even keep his eyes open. His eyes are heavy and scratchy and aching, but he just _can’t_ get comfortable. Can’t stop listening to all the ordinary noise. He finds himself jumping at sounds that have to be a couple of blocks away, automatic and dream-like through the haze of everything.

He’s _somehow_ sleeping when Karen and Foggy are suddenly at the door. Or, at least, he thinks he was. Matt shoves himself up, pats himself down to make sure the shirt and sweatpants he’s wearing aren’t his rattiest and pushes a hand through his hair. He doesn’t have the slightest clue what time it is and if he pauses to check they’ll worry and let themselves in.

“Coming!” He shouts quickly and makes it there before Foggy it Karen have produced a key, at least.

Matt finds himself straightening his shirt compulsively.

“Uh. Hi.” There’s tension. Matt can feel it in their heartbeats. Gets a burn of guilt, from that.  _You didn’t do this to yourself._ Frank’s voice again. Can’t help but feel that Frank must just not get it. Matt must have kept something from him. There must be a reason why it makes everyone else so wildly uncomfortable. He shakes the thoughts from his mind like so much cold water and gestures Karen and Foggy to follow.

“Need anything?” Matt asks, trying not to fidget on his feet in all the silence.

“Nah, Buddy, I’m fine.” Foggy sounds hushed. Matt doesn’t understand why he isn’t hugging. He’s lurking at an unnatural distance, sounding like he’s about to cry- Matt can smell that he is, actually- and he’s not… even reaching. God when did he get so fucking _needy_ .  
“Karen told you?” Matt says, shifting awkwardly. He feels horribly _watched_ . Feels- and it’s terrible that it’s coming from his friends- the sort of dreadfully hopeless burn of pity that he’s become accustomed to from strangers since he was ten years old.

“Sit down how many times have you been here just, sit down if you want if you’re, if you’re staying.” Matt tries not to sound as irritated as he feels. For the first time in a while he feels naked without his glasses to hide behind. He perches on the arm of a chair and fights the urge to find them or turn his face away.

“We just want to talk to you. We don’t have to stay.” Karen says, voice much too careful, as if she’s afraid of Matt’s reaction and that... It really hurts.  
“Why wouldn’t I want you to stay?” Matt tries to laugh disbelieving but his own voice sounds high and strange.  
“You might not like what we have to say.” Foggy says quietly.  
“What have you both been off rehearsing speeches or something.” Matt can’t help but let the irritation leak into his voice a little bit, this time.  
“Hey, hey just listen alright.” Karen says and Matt clenches his teeth on a biting reply because he’s _allowed_ , surely, to be tired of all of the staring that he can’t see and all this silence.  
“We’ll sit, ok?” Foggy says quickly. “We can sit.”

Foggy and Karen on the couch does nothing to relax Matt’s agitated mind.

“Help us understand.” Karen says, finally. “We need to understand.” Matt takes a long breath and tries to think something other than I don’t understand.  
“Understand…” He says vaguely.  
“Yeah, look, things don’t seem… better.” Foggy almost winces as he says it. “So I- we- want to know _how_ we help you.”  
“You think if I knew that…” Matt finds the words spilling out of him and makes himself stop talking. Karen quickly fills the silence.  
“We can’t help you unless you talk to us. We can do this together, I think… I think that’s where we went wrong. Not talking about things.” She says.  
“Matt we don’t want to fight with you.” Foggy jumps in, doing a calming voice. Matt hates that his body language is making Foggy feel that he needs to do that. “I don’t want to fight but I… I don’t think we should… enable you, either.”

“This isn’t about _you_ —“ Matt splutters, horrified, and it isn’t what he means but he can’t find the words.  
“Isn’t about _us?”_ Foggy says, a fraction short of harshly. “Matt we are part of your life, like it or not you involved us when you involved yourself.”  
“Then get out of my life!” Matt doesn’t remember rising to his feet but he’s there, standing in front of them, shouted words still ringing in the air. He’s angry, he’s so _angry_ . He’s shaking with it.  
“No, don’t you do that again.” Foggy says darkly. “I won’t let you push me away.”  
“Why not? You can’t stand who I am—“  
“Matt, who you are is killing you!”

Foggy is on his feet now and he spoke with a gritted desperate bravery that he doesn’t need, because he may just as well have punched Matt in the stomach for all that Matt has forgotten how to breathe or even speak. He just stands there frozen and listening.

“You are going to get yourself killed. You’re had two near misses now.” Karen speaks as if encouraged by his silence. “You know it’s inevitable and we can’t let this happen again so please, _please_ talk to us.” Karen finishes, and Matt’s heart is pounding so heavily that he’s sure they must be able to hear is over the sound of the writhing, deafening city.

“I _know,_ do I?” Matt snarls out.  
“It’s wrong it’s dangerous and whatever inside is making you self destruct like this, Matt if you need help with _anger_ or, or something you have to find another outlet or…” Foggy tries, voice desperate.  
“Y-you think I just need some anger management and I’ll be all better? You think that’s what this is?”   
“ _Whatever_ it is driving you—“ Foggy tries but Matt interrupts with a sneer.  
“You said you wanted to listen but it sounds as if you already have this all figured out.” Matt spits. He’d sound angrier if he could get a proper breath.  
“We don’t want to watch you keep on finding ways to _die_ —“ Karen bursts out.  
“Not… it’s not _about_ that…” Matt keeps forgetting how to breathe why can’t he just, _breathe,_ why...  
“If it was ever about anything else it is about that _now!”_ Foggy doesn’t shout but he’s almost there.

Matt is startled back into silence. He struggles. Realises that the burn in the pit of his stomach is guilt. They're in pain. For _him._ It’s wrong. It’s _wrong_ . He wants to say he’s sorry. They’re both hurting. He did that. _Sorry_ could never be enough. Just as he tried to filter his desperate, reeling remorse, Stick seems to loom at the back of his head. He shouldn’t _have_ friends. He should never have let them get close enough to hurt them.

“You should go.” It’s all he can manage because he can _feel_ their eyes and his focus is slipping away and with it his ability to filter out the horror beyond his own apartment.  
“We’re glad you’re safe, ok?” Karen says, voice much too gentle, and Matt stands, suddenly and turns away.  
“Thank you.” He says unsteadily.

“We can stay, if you…”  
“No, no. Frank will be back soon. It’s fine.” He still doesn’t know what time it is, actually, but needs them to leave. Even the prospect of accepting help from Frank is making him feel sick to his stomach.

They leave in silence.

Matt’s cold. His body seems to weigh twice as much as it should. It takes him an indeterminate length of time to hear that he’s breathing too quickly over the sound of the city.

It isn’t until he’s been standing in the dark for some time, wrapped up in the chatter of the city, that he realises what he meant to say. Not _this isn’t about you._ Like he did. He meant to say…  
“This is not your fault.” He says it out loud. Quiet and pathetic, to the darkness.

 

*  


“Do you ever even lock this?” Jessica’s boots on the steps down from the roof access are loud enough to jerk Matt right out of his haze. He’s sitting on the couch. Can’t really remember moving there. Jess is still speaking. “You _could_ switch the lights on you know. Not very hospitable for the eyeball-dependant. Even if you aren’t expecting me and I’m just crashing…” She reaches the approximate position of the light switch and there’s a click. Her heart rate increases immediately.

“Shit, Murdock.” She says, voice hushed. “What happened?”

Matt takes a deep breath. Makes himself sit up and look like a living thing. It’s not fair for Jess to find him blank and messed up for a second time.  
“Good to see you too, Jess.” Matt says with as much enthusiasm as he can summon. She’s beside him, grumbling something about how much of an idiot he Is under her breath.  
“I’m fine.”  
“I don’t need your heartbeat trick to know you’re lying.”  
“Physically. I’m fine. You can go.”  
“What happened.” Jess doesn’t demand an answer but the flat tone to her voice spells no patience and Matt’s so relieved by her lack of delicacy that he finds himself  
speaking again.  
“Foggy and Karen. They came to help. I was an asshole.”  
“Well, I’ve been _there_ .” Jessica says shrugging a bit.  
“Don’t, don’t I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t _do this_ I always h-hurt them.” He clenches his teeth on the wobble in his voice. Get it together, Murdock.  
“Shouldn’t do what.” Jessica’s voice is calm and the question is straightforward. Just nudges him towards the next thought that he’s struggling to get to through his stupid useless brain.  
“Shouldn’t let them close. Shouldn’t _have_ friends doesn’t work I’m not… I hurt people.”  
“Caring about people hurts. That’s just life.” Jessica says it with an edge of bitterness. “You’re not special. Isn’t Page always running off with Frank Castle? She of all people should know that.”  
“They think I’m better than this but. I can’t be.” Matt says it numbly, without thinking.

Jessica sits in silence for a moment.  
“Something’s up with you. What happened… for them to need to come help you?”

Matt frowns. Doesn’t want to go over this again. Jessica needs to know, though. Just how broken he is. Maybe she’ll leave him be if she knows. “There was an uh. A disturbance last night. I was out with Trish. It’s not important but you should know.”  
“Oh I know about that. Actually came to berate you about it.” Jess grumbles, but not too harshly. “Go on.”  
“I.” Matt clenches his teeth. “We were at the docks. Fell in the water.”  
“Right…” Jessica says slowly. It still takes Matt a long time to find a way to say it.  
“I really lost my shit, Jess.” Matt breathes.  
“What…” Jessica’s heart rate jumps. She’s working it out. Matt’s relieved. He doesn’t _want_ to say it.  
“Frank jumped in after me. I’d still be down there if he hadn’t.” Matt finds his hands have clenched themselves into tight fists.

“Jesus, Matt.” Jess says eventually. “If you ever need to talk…” he snorts.  
“That’s what did it. Just now with Karen and Foggy. Talking. Don’t want to talk. Don’t know what to talk about.” He shrugs hopelessly.  
“You need time.” Jessica says.  
“Mm.” Matt grunts. “Never did speak to Danny.” He tells her, after a beat.  
“Don’t blame you.”

They sit in silence for some time.  
“I know it seems hopeless.” Jessica starts. “It does sometimes, but it’s not. You do need people around you. That’s why.”

 

*

 

Frank thinks about calling Rachel. Doesn’t entertain the thought for too long. In fact, when he walks in on Matt looking so pale and red around the eyes, a dark haired woman reclining on his couch with fake nonchalance that Frank can _feel_ in his shoulders somehow, the thought of Rachel moves right down his list of priorities.  
“Did someone die?” He asks, unsure if it’s appropriate but unsure what else to say.  
“Frank Castle.” The woman doesn’t sound surprised. She scowls up at him from the couch and doesn’t move. He can smell whiskey on her.  
“You been drinking?” He asks, half glancing at Matt and then back to her.  
“No that was just me.” She shrugs. “Jessica Jones.” She stands with more dexterity than someone who smells _quite_ so strongly of whiskey should possess and sticks out her hand for him to shake. He takes it.

Her grip is… supernaturally strong. It’s not that she squeezes his hand hard, but there’s a foundation to her grip that is immovable. His hand is very much along for the ride. Her eyes are narrowed and intense, head tilted a little to the side. She stands and considers him once she releases his hand, hands in her pockets. Her face is thoughtful.   
“Matt said you’d be back. You helped him, after, right?” She’s trying to sound as if she doesn’t care. Something about her tone betrays how much she cares. Frank knows it. Can feel it in his own throat.  
“Mm.” Frank shrugs. “You’re his friend? From before.”  
“Mm.” She only makes the slightest grunt of confirmation, the slightest nod. Frank and Jessica lock eyes, just for a moment and it’s as if he knows her, somehow, though they’ve never met before. They have matching barriers. She’s lost trust. Lost people. She’s just as afraid to say it as he is. The recognition is in her eyes too. After a strange, moment in which Matt furrows his brow and twitches his head, trying to make some sense of the silence, Jessica nods a couple of times.  
“He’s all yours. Matt. Take care of yourself, yeah?”

She leaves via the roof.

“She seems nice.” Frank says, sits beside Matt in her place.  
“Drops in on me sometimes.” Matt says by way of explanation.  
“Literally?” Frank asks unsurely.  
“She can sort of fly.” Matt shrugs.  
“Oh.” Frank glances up to the roof access door. “Huh.”

 

*

 

When Karen appears at the door the next day, Frank knows something is wrong. Watches them interact. Watches Karen leave him some tea. Chamomile, expensive. Trish’s idea, he knows from instinct. Not Karen’s style at all. She’s too awkward with Matt, Frank’s never seen her anything but at ease with him, worries aside. When she leaves, Frank tries to get an answer out of Matt and watches his face close on itself. He turns away.  
“It’s nothing.”

And it isn’t nothing.

Frank wakes to find Matt gone from the bed that night, finds him turned away from the bedroom in the corner of the kitchen, as far from Frank as he could get, speaking quietly through his phone. He doesn’t notice Frank.  
“51st and 10th. Yeah. Yeah it was. A group I… people are… _were_ getting hurt I saw… a group. Thank you. Thank you.” Matt’s hands are shaking when he lowers the phone. Jumps suddenly, head turning, looking as if Frank’s caught him doing something terrible.  
“Hey, hey.” Frank steps towards him slowly. “You hear something happen?”  
“Still happening.” Matt says, tightly.  
“You did what you could.” Frank says. The pain on Matt’s face doesn’t fade at all. “Come back to bed.”

“They’re going to get suspicious if I call every time.” Matt murmurs once he’s under the blanket.  
“We can figure something out.” Frank tells him, though he doesn’t know what.  
“I’m trying.” Matt says, half asleep already. Frank isn’t sure he’s been to sleep yet. Isn’t sure he’s sleeping much at all. “Karen and Foggy. They. I’m doing what they said.” Matt takes a long breath inward. His voice is pained as much as it’s sleepy.  
“Who?”  
“Karen and Foggy. They don’t want me to get hurt.” Matt says vaguely. Frank frowns into the darkness. They must have come over before Jones.  
“I’ll speak to Karen…” Frank says but Matt grabs his arm through the darkness.  
“Don’t. Please don’t. It’s… don’t worry.”

Frank can’t go back to sleep until he hears Matt’s breathing settle. It takes a long time.

  


*

 

“Frank.” Nelson’s voice has that slightly nervous tremor to it that Frank always remembered him trying so hard to hide back when he was speaking to him in court. Frank turns to him. They stand facing each other in the lobby of Matt’s apartment building. Frank hopes Matt is sleeping or listening to something else, because there must be a reason that Nelson has cornered him down here.  
“Were you watching the front of the building for me to get back?” Frank smiles slowly.  
“Er.” Foggy says awkwardly.  
“C’mon it’s ok. What did you want?” Frank frowns at him but as gently as he can manage. For all that Matt looked messed up the other night when Frank came home,   
Frank can’t _know_ it was Foggy’s fault. Matt’s not in a good place.  
“Matt’s struggling.”  
“I have noticed that.” Frank narrows his eyes.  
“I think he needs uh. A break.”  
“Are you telling me to _leave?”_ Frank allows his voice to get an edge and Foggy blanches.  
“What? No no, _no,_  nothing like that I just. I have an idea. Better not to tell him it’s _my_ idea, maybe not right away anyway, look, I just. Want to help, Karen says he was _responding_ to you. More than anyone.” Foggy stammers and Frank sighs.  
“I’m listening.”

 

*

 

Matt seems to be at the early stage of coffee-making that Frank would guess means that he only sensed his approach when he got to the upstairs corridor.  
“Hey.” Frank says as nonchalantly as he can. He crosses the room to the kitchen.

Frank takes Matt’s hand.  
“I have an idea and I'm not sure you’re going to like it.”  
“That opener doesn't fill me with confidence.” Matt’s tense and a little prickly. He mostly is, since the incident at the docks.  
“I want to take you out of town.”

Frank knows he moment he says it that it's not going to be a success. Matt rips his hand from his fingers and paces away, shoving both hands into his hair.  
“I'm not running away with you.” He hisses out.  
“Not asking you to, just think getting away would do you some good.”  
“Never should have told you what she said I never should have--” Matt mutters under his racing breath and Frank sighs. Giving Matt a damn panic attack wasn't what he had in mind, and it looks like that's what's going to happen if he can't talk him down. _Idiot_ .  
“Matt. I swear that's not what I want. I don't want you to run. I don't want to be the only thing you know. I'm not trying to take you away from what you love.”  
“This place, Frank, this place is everything.” Matt wheezes out, tense and still turned away from him.  
“Foggy has a retreat in Connecticut. A beach house.” Frank says slowly. “I'm not asking you to go far. Or for long. I think you just need some space. Away from the city and all its pressure and responsibility. Just a few days. So you can breathe. That's all.”

Matt stands frozen and breathing hard and Frank waits. Waits for him to blow up about Frank talking to Foggy about this. React however he needs to.  
“I've never left the city before.” Matt says eventually, voice unsure. Frank relaxes.  
“It's not a long drive. You don't like it we come home. No arguments.”

Matt breathes out through his nose in a long stream.  
“Ok.”

 

***

 

Frank gets the time off easily enough, he doesn’t take time off, ever. Once they’re in the car, driving to the address Foggy text over to Frank (they swapped numbers, it felt weird) Frank feels calmer.

Matt’s head flicks around in the car. Once they leave the city he becomes oddly still. They barely speak. By the time Frank parks the car, Matt seems so frozen that Frank is relieved when he shoulders the door open and gets out. He gets the bags from the trunk almost robotically, until Frank takes his own off his hands.

The two of them look around the summer house in silence. It’s light and airy and Matt seems almost stumbling as he takes it in. He’s overly still. Walking around in a daze, almost. Still, he’s _never_ left the city before, as far as Frank or anyone else knows. Frank leaves him to it for now. Hopes he can adjust.

Frank actually dozes off. He doesn’t mean to, just sits on the sofa, lays back and opens his eyes to bluish dusk. His eyes prickle, body complaining about its sudden wakeful state.

“Matt?” He says, voice edged with a sleepy croak. No answer.

 

At first, Frank assumes that Matt has taken himself off for a nap, he knows he hasn’t been sleeping properly.

Matt isn’t in either of the bedrooms.

The panic settles over Frank like a cloud, only lurking at the edges at first but then blocking out the sun, suddenly.

He’s taken him to the sea. Matt tried to let himself drown. He’s taken him to the _sea_ how could he be so goddamn stupid?

Frank finds his mind racing through one batch two batch at a rate of knots just to keep himself from screaming Matt’s name as he moves through the house, because he doesn’t know for sure that anything is wrong and the last thing he needs is for Matt to be wary of him.

Matt isn’t in the house.

Frank bursts outside, head turning to wildly scan the landscape, grass giving way to sand to _water_ with the sun glittering innocently along its suffocating horizon. Frank races up the path towards the sand, breaks out of the tree line…

Matt’s pants are rolled up. That’s the second fact that registers, the first being the distinctive shape of his shoulders against the sky.

 

Matt has his shoes in his hand, swinging them lazily, walking with his head directed downward at the sand as if in concentration. Frank watches. Matt seemingly hasn’t noticed him yet.

Matt takes a couple of lazy steps towards Frank before his head twitches upwards in recognition.  
“Frank?” He calls.

Frank can’t speak. Strides towards Matt, sand giving way under his feet. Matt’s cheeks are pink and his mouth is relaxed, lips red, hair and shirt ruffled by the breeze, eyes bright, glasses nowhere to be seen. He’s never looked so alive, to Frank.

Frank grabs him by the shoulders, the moment he’s close enough, breathing hard. Thinks briefly that he might look terribly aggressive but Matt doesn’t seem rattled by it. Of course he doesn’t, he realises. Matt can feel that it’s only fear. He doesn’t see how Frank must look. Matt’s face crinkles a little with concern. One of his hands comes up to grasp Frank’s arm.

He doesn’t remember registering the decision. He just wraps his arms around Matt, automatically hesitant at first because he might want him to back off, anyone else would, but Matt catches his back in what could be relief. Frank holds him tightly, then.

“Went for a long walk.” Matt murmurs. “You were sleeping. Shouldn’t have left without telling you where I was going I know I’m sorry.”  
“Don’t, don’t…” Frank’s chest wheezes just slightly as he holds Matt against him. He’s solid and warm and Frank feels his presence fend off some of the panic, at least. God, he is still panicking. He can feel it now, leaching through his body.

Frank just knows that this is how it is now, or maybe it always was. Matt is another name on the ever growing list of people he _can’t lose._

Frank draws back to get another look at his man that he’s managed to compromise himself for. Matt leans back in his arms, pushing his weight there, almost as if they’re dancing. Frank hasn’t seen him so genuinely relaxed. Maybe ever. His eyes are half closed, very light brown in the light, his head tilts as he reads Frank with his senses, mouth curled loosely into a open smile. Relaxed. In his arms. _In Frank’s arms.  
_ “I’m going to kiss you.” Frank tells him, and Matt, at once, tugs him closer and closes the space between them.

Matt’s lips are warm and he’s kissing Frank almost furiously, as if he’s proving that he’s there, that he’s _strong_ and all Frank wants to do is hold onto him and show him that he has nothing to prove. Frank opens his mouth, tries to show him with his body just how long he’s wanted to do this, just how much Matt means.

The kissing becomes holding, just chest on chest, arms wrapped so tightly that Frank can’t tell which are his own and which are Matt’s. They’re the same height, a fact that has only registered previously in terms of Frank needing to carry him and the logistics of that, given that Matt is somewhat more filled out. Now it feels good. Frank almost feels _small_ , a feeling he braces for, thinking it will scare him, but all he wants to do is fall into it and let Matt’s strong arms anchor him down. Knows he needs him close now, with every piece of himself.

Feels himself sink to his knees as if distantly. The haze is warmer than usual but coloured with a terror that Frank knows suddenly is always there, now dragged unceremoniously into the foreground. The fear that this life that he’s pulled together might disintegrate at any moment as his first did. That his actions might tear them from him all over again. Didn’t realise until his body and mind gave out that the panic never left. It was only masked by the relief of finally breaking down the barrier between them.

“Hey. Hey.” Matt’s murmuring, warm hands running through Frank’s hair. Frank is kneeling with his arms wrapped around Matt’s waist.

“Can’t lose you.” Frank mumbles against Matt’s stomach. It’s the most he can get out right now. He’s dislodged and raw and a hundred miles away from his own body. From Matt. _God_ he doesn’t want to lose his shit in front of Matt. Realises much too late that he has no choice now. Clutches desperately at Matt’s body, trying to focus on the feeling of his solid torso under his hands, pushes his face against him...

 

“Frank, can you hear me?” It’s Matt. Voice soft. Close. His hands are on both of Frank shoulders, pulling him back to life. He’s still on his knees only slumped, arms loose at his sides though he doesn’t remember releasing Matt. Matt is knelt beside him.  
“Mm.” Frank manages. “Yeah. M’ok.” Mostly he’s just relieved that it didn’t get messy. Losing himself like this is one thing, an anxiety attack is quite another. Still, Matt has never seen him like this. He shifts uncomfortably.  
“I scared you. I’m sorry.” Matt is knelt in front of him, eyes big, face pinched. “You seemed like you needed the sleep…”  
“Not your fault. Just. Matt, listen.” Frank reaches and takes his hand. “I’m terrified ok?” His voice cracks. He can say it because Matt knows. “I don’t want to lose you. Can’t lose anyone else. I can’t.” The words slip out of him with surprising ease but that may just be because his mind is still dislocated.  
“Hey.” Matt reaches to cup Frank’s face in his hands. Frank let’s him take the weight of it. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise you that.” Frank reaches to hold Matt’s forearms.  
“I love you.” Frank says, simply. Expected it to hurt but it doesn’t. If anything it pulls him back to reality. Matt throws his arms around Frank’s neck and Frank catches him around his back.  
“God, Frank, I love you. I love you so much.”

They hold like that, knelt in the sand, Matt’s bare feet coated in the stuff. When Matt speaks he’s breathless and rushing the words   
“You have to know Frank, I still love _her_ , I don’t think I can stop loving her and if that’s not—“  
“Hey, shh, Matt I know, I _understand_ . It’s ok. You think I care about that?” He grips onto Matt just a little more tightly, just to prove that he can. “You want to… to be with _me_ , yeah?”  
“Yes, God Yes, I know I didn’t show it but it’s all I’ve really _wanted_ since I came back.” His voice cracks and Frank threads a hand unto his hair, already an easy movement. Matt sighs gently, a good sound, comfortable.  
“That’s enough of a miracle.” Frank whispers.  
“You, you think it’s a miracle that I love _you?”_ Matt splutters. “You’re so… you so _warm_ with me I… I’m hard to love and here you are giving me… _everything_ .”  
“Who the fuck told you’re hard to love?” Frank mutters darkly. “Anyone who told you that had their own problems.”  
“Maybe that we found each other. Maybe that’s the miracle.” Matt whispers. Frank gets an uncomfortable pang at his words that he actively ignores. Just holds him and doesn’t pull that thread.

“Isn’t that sand driving you crazy?” He says, squinting at Matt’s feet.  
“Oh. No actually the sensation is… it’s almost overwhelming but it’s not unpleasant. Like… physical white noise.”  
“Oh.”  
“It’s good. I’m… used to a lot more stimuli. I think I needed it.”  
“Sounds like I could use a bit of that right now.” Frank chuckles dryly.  
“Your vitals feel a lot better. It’ll be ok.” Frank gives his body a squeeze.  
“Just so long as you are.” He says.

 

And he is ok. Matt doesn’t rush to move and they just settle themselves on the sand, shoulders resting warmly together, facing out to sea.

“I’ve never felt this.” Matt says.  
“What?” Frank asks.  
“Quiet. It’s _not,_ really but. It’s mostly natural noise. It’s different. Softer.” They sit on the sand in silence, side by side, hands brushing.  
“It’s cold but. It’s not like Hell’s Kitchen rooftops. The air is… fresher than anything I’ve ever breathed.”  
“Damn.” Frank nudges his shoulder. “You gotta get out more.” Matt chuckles.  
“You’re right about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of emotions and talking I know, there was a lot to work through.  
> Next up, back to some action.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt heals. Frank navigates some of his own stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new series and a cancellation has happened since I last posted. Absolute roller coaster.  
> Stay strong everyone.

Matt and Frank eat pies from a kiosk just off the beach and walk. Matt doesn’t seem to mind a second long walk. His feet in the sand seem to be blissing him out, Frank realises with a strange rush of interest and excitement. He finds himself hypnotised by the fuzzy spread of borderline over-stimulation on Matt’s face when his bare toes contact with the sand again and again. It’s… wonderful to watch. Such simple pleasure. Uncomplicated. Frank feels the tension he’s been carrying, tight and painful ever since he found Matt in the snow, lift slightly, the darker it gets and the more Matt’s shoulders sag with a calm Frank has never seen near him until now.

“What feels good?” Frank says eventually. Can’t ignore it any longer.  
“Huh?” Matt says, tiling his head lazily.  
“C’mon. Top five sensations, go.”  
“Put me on the spot.” Matt laughs.  
“I’m curious.” Frank shrugs.  
“Right.” Matt looks gently flustered by the question, tiling his head this way and that as if searching for an answer. His face might be a little pinker than it was before.  
“Uh, so.” He fidgets. “This is gonna sound weird.”   
“M’sure we’ve been through weirder.” Frank nudges him.  
“Right. We do have a background in ninjas to contend with.” Matt grins. “Sure, Ok. Hair. There’s a lot to it, for me. Each hair is feathery.”  
“Wow, Ok.”  
“Not creepy?”  
“No, not creepy.”  
“Uh… five.” Matt frowns thoughtfully. “So that’s one. Two, sticking my hand in a bag of flour. Three, being underwater— if it’s warm, cold is not so good.” He smiles nervously and Frank catches his hand as they walk. Initiating physical contact feels alien but the impulse is there, so he follows it, even though his skin feels overly-alive with the sensation of Matt touching him.

Three… the wind in my hair. Four, sunlight. Five…” He squeezes Frank’s hand. Slowly, his thumb skims along Frank’s knuckles. “Uh…” Matt chuckles, flustered, suddenly. “Melting chocolate.” Matt says quickly. Frank knows that isn’t what he was going to say but he leaves it. Smirks to himself.

Matt’s hand goes slack suddenly. Frank turns to look at him. His head is pivoting this way and that as he reads the air or the sound or whatever it is he does.

“Three houses down. Three men. Guns.”  
“What’s happening?”  
“The older couple are in bed. They’re awake. They’re scared.” Matt’s moving and Frank jogs after him.  
“Don’t think I’m not coming with you.”  
“Don’t kill anyone.” Matt grunts. Frank grimaces.  
“Yeah look I’m not doin’ that shit in someone else’s house. ‘Sides they’re only thieves right? Nothing else…”  
“Not yet.” Matt skids to a stop once the get to the house, drops his shoes on the ground beside the broken French doors and faces his back against the wall. Frank follows suit.  
“Where are they all?” Frank whispers almost inaudibly. He grins when Matt immediately answers without comment.  
“One going up the stairs. Two down.”  
“Alright. You—“ Frank starts but Matt is already hopping up the masonry like he’s doing parkour with only a sideways hiss of.  
“Cover the doors.” which he must know Frank is going to ignore.

Frank slips inside the living space. There’s one guy in there, trying his best to crack a safe, but Frank can see that he’s slowly losing patience. Frank uses the rustling of him pulling his handgun from a jacket pocket as noise cover and grabs him from behind. 

All things considered, choking him out doesn’t make much noise. It’s enough to alert his buddy, who appears in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs just in time to see Frank dumping his friend unceremoniously onto the expensive tiled flooring.

“Hey—“ The guy shouts and Frank ducks down to get his buddy’s gun. Frank barely has time to consciously reinforce that this can’t be a kill shot for Matt’s sake, when the third man Matt heard tumbles out of the staircase and knocks the two of them flat. Matt swings down after him and Frank moves across the room in time to watch Matt punch out both, one after the other.  
“How d’you know they aren’t gonna snap their neck when you kick them down the stairs like that?”  
“I don’t.” Matt tells him  _ almost _ casually. “Not for sure.” There’s a rough edge to his voice, picked up from the fight.  
“Right.” Frank frowns. He makes for the stairs.  
“What are you doing?” Matt asks.  
“...Checking the homeowners. What were you just gonna leave them?” Matt stands there, motionless. Frank stares at him.  
“I can hear them. They’re fine.” Is what he eventually says. Frank blinks.  
“This isn’t the city. This isn’t an apartment. Nobody heard the shouting, nobody is coming. Don’t you… check on people you save?” Frank says, feeling his mouth hang open. Matt stays still and Frank stands, one foot on the stairs, waiting for him to move. Eventually Matt opens his mouth, pauses and flicks his head back and forth as if trying to hear something and then, finally he speaks.  
“Not. Not so much, anymore.” He says heavily. 

Frank’s first reaction is anger. He doesn’t understand it at first, just paces restlessly and shoves a hand through his hair.  
“Well why.” Frank stops when his voice comes out rough and louder than it should be, finds he’s waving one hand at Matt angrilly and drops it. Frank takes a deep breath. “...Why the fuck  __ not?”  
“I just hurt people.” Matt says, and Frank wants to kick himself suddenly, because he’s too still, his voice is too quiet and distant and there’s an overwhelming sense that Matt isn’t there right now. Not entirely. He’s drifted right out of the room without moving his feet and Frank didn’t see his tethers have snapped until just now.  
“You just… Matt you  __ save people.” Frank says slowly. Matt shrugs one shoulder, mouth set in a miserable line.  
“I go to a dark place. Use a part of myself that’s… wrong. These people don’t need to see that.” his voice is tiny and breaking and Frank shakes his head.  
“Matt.” Frank says, sighing and making his voice gentle. “Find some duct tape. Tape their hands and feet alright?”  
“Sure.” Matt wanders off into the kitchen, but at least he’s focussed and seems to know where he’s going.

The old couple are lying in bed, clinging together with the comforter drawn right up to their necks.  
“Ma’am? Sir? We have secured the attackers, but we are not police. Do you have a cell phone?”  
“Y-y-you want money? We got money!”  
“No sir, we just stepped in and subdued some unsavory characters robbing your house. Now we would rather not be here when the police arrive but there are three men unconscious in your living room presently and I personally would like to know official help is on the way for you, is that understood?”  
“In the bedside table.” The wife says.  
“Ma’am if you wouldn’t mind calling before my friend and I leave, unless you’d like us to stay but I believe those men will be sleeping a good few hours yet.” He smiles.  
“No no that will be fine. My son lives two miles away he can come and look after us, thank you…”  
“If you could be kind enough to say you never saw me…”  
“Quite right, no problem.”  
“Appreciate it, ma’am.”

*

Matt is worryingly blank, and when they get back to the house, he grabs a beer from the fridge and downs it. Frank doesn't have the heart to stop him.  
“One in there for me?” He says, casual, and Matt throws a can at him.  
They get from beer to whiskey and end up close but not touching, slumped on the couch.  
“Something on your mind?” Frank says, needing to nudge to the problem. He has a growing suspicion that this is his fault.  
“Coming out here was a good idea.” Matt says. Matt telling Frank any of his ideas are good is a warning sign as far as Frank is concerned.  
“But.” He prompts when Matt goes silent again.  
“But.” Matt smiles a bit. “Without all the noise I’m so used to, I’m forced to  _ think _ .” He’s smiling, maybe a little bitterly.  
“That was the idea.”  
“I know.” Matt sighs. “It’s a lot of mess, you know?”  
“I know.” Frank tries a smile.

“I don't even know if she's dead.” Matt says, voice flat.  
“Elektra?” Frank asks softly. Matt’s breath shudders out in a rush.  
“She came back. Don't ask how, it sounds… insane. The others will tell you. She came back, that's all you need to know. But, working for,  _ them _ , the ones who killed her.” He takes another drink of whiskey and shudders. “We were both there when the building came down. Couldn't leave her. We were… fighting. She…” he waves a hand in the direction of his chest, a slashing motion. “Right through my armour like it was paper. She threw Cage like he didn't weigh anything, she could have killed me. Easy. But… she didn't and it felt so good to have her… close, even after… even…”  
“Matt…” Frank rests a hand on his shoulder. He doesn't pull away. Leans into it. Frank hates to ask, but he has to. Has to know. “Could you have gotten out of there?”  
“How could I, Frank, how could I when I already lost her, once?”  
“Oh.” Frank whispers, dry and breathless.  
“I wasn’t. Lying when I said… I didn’t  _ think _ about it.” Matt says, flat, defeated, tired. “But I guess I uh. I did let it happen. That night.” Matt finishes, deflated. Frank stares at him. It’s a lot. But he  _ said _ it. That’s… something.  
“Foggy thought I was depressed, before he knew. I put it down to him not knowing I was going out at night.” Matt swallows, eyes slipping shut. “My mom. I didn’t know much about her but. Heard dad talking to my grandma once, when I was going through a rough patch with the other kids at school. Mom was diagnosed.”  
“Ever seen anyone about this?”  
“No.”

“You stopped after she died, on the rooftop. Was that  _ this _ ?”  
“Bit.” Matt murmurs, and Frank just waits.

Matt sighs, eventually. Knows Frank’s not just going to let it go. “I guess I’ve like this a while. Sometimes it was just. Everything was too much. Only thing I had was that, that devil inside me, needing to work a case, needing to take it out on those people making other people scream. It doesn't… doesn't help does it. Still nothing good. Still. Just dragging yourself along.” His voice fades out.

“You like this when we first crossed paths?” Frank asks after a pause.  
“Yeah.” Matt whispers.  
“Fuck, Red.” Frank breathes.

“Don't even know if, if she came back- again- if I'd… want her there. I  _ shouldn't,  _ but. Y’know I love her. I don't think I'll ever  _ not _ love her.”  
“I know.” Frank says softly, feeling it resonate down to his bones like a shockwave, but only so far. Matt’s love is…  _ different _ . Reversed. “But. Shouldn't let her hurt you.” Frank adds, somehow needing to get even a piece of it out there.  
“Mm.” Matt says, shrugging, unconvinced.

He doesn't speak for a while, when he does his voice is dull, but at least he's still talking about it.  
“She's the only person I think I help more than hurt.”  
“What?” Frank blurts, taken aback.

Matt doesn't speak for a long time.  
“I uh. Y’know, I uh. My friends. I just. They're there for me, I… when we were on your case, went off with Elektra when they needed me most. I just. Fuck everything up. Better without me.”  
“Matt!” Frank chokes out. “What're you,  _ Matt _ \--”  
“You don't have to make me feel better about this Frank I know, I lie I let them down I hurt them, I'm a selfish person, I know I…”  
“No!  _ No _ you listen to me.” Frank takes his other shoulder, turns to face him, to look at his eyes, though he's turned his head away and down as if he’s afraid of eye contact he can’t make.

“Am I lying? Listen to my heart. Listen. I  _ know _ for a fucking  _ fact  _ that you are one of  _ the most _ selfless men I have ever known.”  
“ _ Frank _ y-you can't say that you've known… men and women who  _ died _ \--”  
“Am I lying?” He says as gently as he can when it's so  _ important. _ “I'm not lying, you, Matt you can hear…  _ everything  _ and you, even when you’re fucked up and tired, you go out and you  _ help _ , because you  _ care. _ ”  
“I, Frank, you don't understand…” and it's worse than taking a hit, but Frank clings on anyway.  
“I  _ do _ I  _ do  _ understand that you do the right thing, even when it's  _ not _ fair, even when it hurts, even when it almost kills you. So what you went along with her and you missed a couple of days in court, was it  _important?_ Did you have a choice?”  
“I…”  
“ _ Matt _ , did you have a  _ choice?”  _ Frank holds onto him, demands an answer, and Matt shakes his head fitfully.  
“I should have done more I should have tried harder I--”  
“Did you have any more to give? Truthfully.  _ Think _ , could you have given  _ any _ more of yourself?”  
“N-no.” He blurts out.

Matt’s numbness seems to burst like a bubble. He sobs, clings to Frank, buries his face against his shoulder and almost spills his glass of whiskey.  
“Hey, hey.” Frank takes the glass out of his hand, sets it aside.  
“You aren't a bad person for having limitations y'know.” Frank rubs his back as Matt shudders uncontrollably. “You aren't a fucking  _ selfish person _ because you got into too much, for god's sake Matt, you’re just one man. You're just a  _ man  _ you don't have to get everything right to be a good person…” Frank's drunk enough that the words are just coming out, wrapping himself around Matt. Needs him to stop shaking. “You're a good man.”

Matt clings to Frank but he does settle, stops shaking.

“You still with me? I talk too much.”  
“M’here, Frank, I'm here.”  
“You didn’t make all the problems in the world.” He realises he's stroking Matt’s hair. They're beyond those sort of boundaries now, he supposes.

“Can you tell me how you do it?” Frank asks Matt quietly, once he’s cradled against him. Once his eyes have stopped watering.  
“Do what?” Matt whispers. Frank breathes in and out through his nose. He pulls a blanket around the two of them. Matt shifts himself into a more comfortable position.  
“You can hear everything. Every lie, every ugly piece of all of us. Everything. How do you… how do you keep that… that faith in people? That  _ hope? _ How is it you don’t just give up on humanity? Tell me to shut up if you wanna just…”  
“No.” Matt pushes himself a little more upright. “I can talk.” He swallows. Doesn’t speak for a long time. “There’s Good too.” He murmurs eventually. “People… doing good things even when nobody’s looking. Even when nobody will know. People who don’t believe God is watching, just… picking up trash. Handing in a lost glove. They’re not all good people. I once heard two shoplifters disarm a guy who was stealing from the till at gunpoint. A woman picked up a wallet, took enough money to buy her child an ice cream and handed it in. People are… rich and complex. Even bad people do good things. Most people do bad things for ordinary reasons. Reasons they can’t much help. Everybody feels pain the same. Just… not always when they should.”

“You’re so full of hope.” Frank tells him. Doesn’t know what else to say. It's something he can't touch, but being close to Matt is... almost close to feeling it in his own heart.  
“I’m… I think I figured something out.” Matt says suddenly. “I think maybe I know what to say to Karen and Foggy. I can talk to them.”  
“Ok.” Frank says. “That’s good.”

*

The rest of the long weekend passes lazily. Matt seems to have found some sort of pace, now. The free and happy man Frank found walking shoe-less on the beach is back with maybe an edge of grounding.

Matt is less guarded, here. As if the world he could hear was pinning him down at home.

They walk, mostly. Eat in little overpriced cafés and Frank even narrates an art gallery for Matt one day.

They kissed. That fact is hanging between them. They haven’t done it again, not yet. Frank’s a little nervous, if he’s honest. What does it mean? Can this work? He knows he wants it to. More than he remembers wanting anything  _ since _ , or, anything good, at least. But maybe... maybe Matt's seen enough darkness. Thinks of the dark and violent Elektra Matt has shown him little pieces of with memory. Looks at Matt, healing now. Getting lighter. Maybe, Frank thinks heavily, he'll get light enough to float out of Frank's reach.

***

Frank wakes to a soft hand on his arm. His chest tightens for a moment. Takes a bit to get back to reality. Matt. It's Matt.

“Sorry.” Matt whispers through the darkness. “You were dreaming.”  
“S’fine, s’fine I uh, sometimes waking up is. Takes a bit.” Frank reaches to brush his knuckles against Matt’s side, that being the closest skin. He feels a raised line and pauses to follow it with the backs of his fingers. Stops once he realises what he's doing.  
“That one was a Russian with a knife.” Frank can hear Matt’s little smile. His shoulders relax. 

He sleeps with no shirt on, even sharing a bed with Matt, who he has kissed  _ once _ .

Because Matt deserves more than Frank can give him.

He's fast losing touch with his own excuses. Everything is his hand, sliding against Matt’s skin, smooth, so smooth. Matt rolls to face him. Can just about see his eyes glinting in the darkness.

Matt can't see his scars. The main reason he allowed himself to sleep without a shirt. Yet, now, he sees Matt’s hand move through the gloom. He touches Frank’s shoulder.  
And Frank, broken fool that he is, pulls away. His breath hisses out through clenched teeth.

“Hey, hey I'm sorry, I'm sorry I… that's invasive I forget… boundaries sometimes I…” Matt babbles, his breathless crushed-velvet voice all rambling and disorderly for a man usually so carefully eloquent. He sounds like he's cursing himself. Frank catches his hand as he pulls it back.  
“You have  _ too many _ boundaries, if anything.” Frank tells him. Matt snorts.  
“Frank, I can hear your heartbeat so I know you're believe that you're saying, but that's exactly my  _ point.”  
_ “Nah. Matt. You're not invading. I swear. I'm just. Y’know. I got a lot. Nobody… nobody's seen them. I uh. I don't… know where this comes from.” He almost laughs, hollow, disbelieving. “Any normal person… would be… your hands are…” Frank just can't find the words, so he finds himself stroking Matt's captured hand with both of his, instead.

On impulse, he tugs Matt’s hand to his lips and presses it there.

Matt lies very still. For a moment, Frank is sure he has fucked up, in the worst way. That Matt has come to his senses, now.

Then Matt’s coaxing Frank to roll over and face him, he's nosing Frank’s nose and gently touching his lips to Frank’s. Frank makes the touching more like pressing, and then Matt returns, urgently, kissing Frank like he’ll vanish if he stops.  
Matt’s everything. He smells  _ so _ good from this close, just the natural, sleepy smell of his skin, smells like tea, maple syrup.  
Frank can't remember feeling so safe. Warm. It's  _ so _ good. He can hardly breathe. Except that he is, easier than he has in… well. Too long.

And Frank, lips mouthing at Matt’s, finds himself tracing Matt’s scars with his fingertips. He breaks away, breathlessly, just for a moment.  
“Shit I'm sorry I uh…”  
“Hey. Frank, I don't mind.” Matt smiles and kisses him again. “We can do this.”  
“I uh…” He’s curious, though. He wants to, now he has permission to touch. Now he's not having to hoard away every little piece of contact.

Even in the dark, Matt is such a good shape. Frank runs his hands from shoulders to waist, pausing to trace the raised, smoother blemishes there. When he finds the long, deep ones, straight lines on either side, one across his back, he can't help but stop. His breath catches. It's  _ memory _ on his skin. Frank has a vision of Matt, bleeding from these, and freezes up with horror, just for a moment. Frank takes his turn to feel invasive.  
“Nobu.” Matt murmurs. “The man I threw off the roof that night.”

Frank lets it hang there.

“Oh.” He says, stroking his palms against his reassuringly healed skin.  
“It's ok.” Matt tells him, cupping his face with both hands. “It's over and I'm alive.”  
“Right.”

Frank takes Matt’s hand again. This time, he presses it against his chest, decisively, inviting the contact both ways.  
“Can I…” Matt asks.  
“S-sure. Sure.” Frank doesn't know how to  _ be _ flustered, yet here he is, fumbling with his words while the man he sleeps beside, now, asks permission to touch his scars.  
“I'll stop if you get scared, that ok?” Matt asks, gently touching Frank’s hair. “We don't have to do this.”  
“I think I uh, I think I  _ need _ to do this.” Frank latches both hands onto Matt’s upper arms, for his own stability, this time. “And your  _ hands _ feel pretty fuckin’ good. This ain't exactly gonna be an ordeal.” He smiles.  
“Ok.” And then Matt’s hands are touching,  _ so _ softly, against Frank’s torso.

It's messier than Matt’s, Frank knows. Matt's tolf him he had Claire and Frank might have Curt now but before that, he did… enough to keep going. Matt’s breathing doesn't falter as much as Frank fears it will. He half expects him to pull away from him in  _ horror _ when his firm, probing fingers begin to feel the distinctly uneven shape of his ribs. They’re… well. It's the least visible part of it, the least of it, to someone with eyes. Now Matt is laying him open with a gentle press of his palms, finding the most jagged, uncomfortable parts of him, the broken lines that ache in the cold and spike with incoherent cobwebs of damaged nerves when he runs. Matt’s fingertips only get lighter, more exploratory. No less… caring. No disgust.

Matt leans down and kisses there, lips lingering.

Frank’s breath catches.

Frank’s body fuzzes with overstimulation, unused to this. Static made of unfamiliar touch. So anchored to his own body that he hardly knows how to be, so used to being detached, his body just being something he needs to keep running. Now Matt’s treating him like a person.

He slides his hands into Matt’s soft hair, tries not to whimper out loud.

Matt is kissing every scar now, and Frank almost wants to laugh that the spectre of him, the wraith he’s carved himself into, is here, being kissed. The nightmare boogieman of the criminal underworld, tearing up because the devil himself- how Matt manages to pull off the persona when he's so damn  _ angelic _ Frank will never understand- is gently mapping out the most terrible, ugly parts of him. Frank feels the tears climbing up his throat before they make it to his eyes. Stinging, dragging a groan of something unexplainable out of him. Matt stops.  
“Still with me?” Matt murmurs.  
“Yes, yeah I just.” Frank buries his face against Matt’s neck. Matt makes a little humming sound. “Not used to feeling like this.”  
“Like what?” Matt wraps his arms around Frank’s body, securing him. So much skin on skin.  
“Whole.” Frank barely breathes it but Matt hears, tightens his arms. Doesn't say anything, just presses his lips to Frank’s chest.

Matt’s muscular body moves between Frank’s legs. Frank groans, finds his hands balling up Matt’s shirt. The fabric is unbelievably soft. Matt chuckles against his skin.  
“Hey uh. That a gun in your pocket, or..?” Matt murmurs. Frank feels Matt’s lips tug into a slow grin, teeth against his chest.  
“Oh.” Frank laughs. “You’re… kissing my whole body…”   
“Mm.” Matt nuzzles and kisses him again.  
“I’m bound to have a little  _ reaction _ .”  
“Feels more like a  _ big _ reaction to me.” Matt says. Frank laughs again, startled by the nervous edge to it.

Frank is aware, abruptly, that he’s hit a wall. He realises his hands are still gripping tightly to Matt’s shirt. It’s an effort to make them unclench.

Matt slowly moves up his chest, leant over him, practically nose to nose. His eyes are shiny and concerned.  
“It’s too much, isn’t it.” He says softly. Frank’s hands might be shaking a little. His chest is beginning to ache.  
“Matt.” He says, making his voice clear and even.  
“I’m ok.” Frank swallows.  
“You’re not.” Matt’s forehead is furrowed, he reaches to press his palm against Frank’s chest and Frank all but flinches.  
“Wait wait wait—“ he finds himself mumbling compulsively.

“Oh god, Frank, I’m sorry…” Matt’s voice is choked, his body pulls away from Frank in a sudden jolt of movement. “Moved to fast got too… too familiar I’m sorry…”  
“N-no it’s ok it’s  _ ok. _ ” Frank manages. He reaches, vision oversharpened with sudden baseless fear. Frank catches Matt’s face with both hands before he can move too far away, stroking his hair firmly out of his eyes. Matt turns his head to hide his face against Frank’s hand.  
“I swear it’s not you. It’s a lot. It’s complicated, but it isn’t your fault. Fuck, Matt, I’d  _ love _ to… right now I’d love it so much I’m uh, I’m just…” his voice is audibly wheezing and Matt gets it without him having to find the words, which Frank is profoundly grateful for.

“Don’t like me touching your chest?” Matt takes Frank’s shoulders in his hands, head twitching at an angle with concentration.  
“Did two minutes ago.” Frank grumbles. “Loved it, actually but. It’s complicated. Can’t… explain right now...” Frank realises, blowing out a breath that isn’t as long as he’d like it to be. He’s fighting his mind. Remembering where he went to escape the torture. It’s too close. Behind that there’s something else. Something darker. Something he’s been forcing down for months.

_ It has to be you, Bill. _

No no no. Maria? Matt? His mind scrambles for footholds up and away from whatever darkness is threatening to open up and swallow him.

Maria is a long, long way away. God, right now it feels like a hundred years ago since he last held her body against his. He can’t say any of it out loud. What would he say to Matt?  _ Last time I even imagined somebody touching me like this I was tied to a chair being beaten to death. _ But his body remembers and he can’t stop it.

He hates himself for it. Feels  _ weak. _ Catches himself before he lets that feeling grow.  _ Shit _ .

“Ok.” Matt whispers. He reaches to cup Frank’s face, stroking his thumb back and forth. “You have to tell me if I’m… being too much.”  
“You’re never too much.” Frank keeps ahold of Matt’s head. Strokes his cheeks, his temples, his hair. “You’re good. Not your fault.”  
“This to do with..?” Matt gestures to Frank’s ribs. To the old injuries Matt revealed with his hands. The once splintered bones of Frank’s chest tingle uncomfortably at his words. Frank doesn’t know how he figured it out. He just hums and nods a bit and let’s his head fall back as he concentrates on the sensations he’s getting from stroking his hands through Matt’s soft, fine hair.  
“Told you.” He rumbles out eventually. “Not your fault.”

His heart won’t slow down. He just needs. He just needs  __ bearings.  
“Frank. I don’t think my being here is helping.” Matt says gently. Frank’s eyes snap open.  
“No no no please, please don’t go.” Frank holds tightly to his shoulders to stop him from moving out of reach.  
“Don’t want. To be alone.”  
“Ok but your heart rate is spiking.” Matt smiles at him but there’s worry in it. He settles at Frank’s side. Frank kisses him on the mouth. Matt kisses him back, brief and warm. Comfortable. Doesn’t hurt. It lends him some strength. Steadies him.

“I never... look it’s been a while.” Frank says gruffly. It’s  _ odd _ , talking about this. “And uh. We haven’t talked about this. I haven’t. Let myself do a lot of thinking...”  
“Hey it’s ok. I get burying things. Just. You can’t push through this. Not  _ this _ .” Matt smiles but it has worry in it and Frank takes a deep breath and squeezes him. Feels the darkness getting close. Wants to stop himself sliding there but Matt’s right. He knows he can’t go here without doing something about this first. He’s hit a wall. 

Matt lets Frank pet his head for long enough to get him moving against Frank fingers like a cat, humming softly. His movements get a little sleepy and Frank releases him, still leant into the warm spaces around his body. Matt settles at Frank’s side. Frank shifts himself so that his back is nestled against Matt’s chest, and Matt gets his arms around him, breath sounding relieved against Frank’s shoulder. Frank breathes in and out a few times. Yeah. This was a good call. Matt feels like safety. He doesn’t feel like a chair or cable ties or a desperate scramble of intimate memories, or anywhere near any of that shit.

“If you ever want to talk about anything.” Matt’s voice is a low little rumble, warm and soothing breath against Frank’s neck. “I’m here. I’m always here.” Frank swallows.

“Thank you.” Frank murmurs. “I uh. Ruined the moment.”  
“Hey no. Don’t think about it like that.” Matt tells him gently. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”  
“Mm.” Frank hums, unconvinced. Regardless, he’s fast feeling a lot safer, though he’s still a little weak and shaky. Matt’s body carefully surrounding his is stabilizing him. “Least it didn’t happen when we were follin' around, huh?” Frank manages a smile. “That wouldn’t have been a great first time.”

“I have had some  _ terrible _ first times.” Matt smiles a bit. “But if I didn’t catch you getting… scared, like that, I really wouldn’t be paying you enough attention.”  
“You don’t scare me, sweetheart.” Frank smiles. “My uh, my mind flaking out when I’d much rather be enjoying myself, that scares me.” He shifts. “Gonna talk to Curt some time soon, ok? Think I’m. Think there’s stuff that happened I haven’t… processed yet. Didn’t realise…” he trails off with a frustrated huff.

“Whatever you have to do.” Matt tells him. “You helped me figure out what was happening to me. I get that… things aren’t always at the surface.”

***

The first thing Matt does when they get back to his apartment is invite Karen and Foggy round for pasta by phone call. Frank sort of helps him cook. It’s fascinating to watch, Matt’s head barely moves as his hands deftly handle vegetables and knives and smoothly transfer the food into pans and bowls.

There’s an odd hush to him. Not in a bad way, really. It’s a little bit tension, but it’s thoughtful. There’s  _ meaning  _ to this invitation, Frank knows. Some kind of resolution has been reached in Matt since they held together on that couch three days ago.

Frank realises, once the smell of cooking has gone from “ingredients” to “meal” and something is taking shape, that Matt is rehearsing what he’s going to say in his head. He catches his mouth moving a couple of times and grins to himself.  
“What are you smiling about?” Matt chuckles and Frank just shrugs.  
“You’re cute alright?”  
“Why am I cute?” Matt’s brow furrows. Frank lazily plods around to stand behind him and reaches to circle Matt’s waist from behind. It’s strangely natural, though they’ve never shared a moment quite like this. 

Frank feels more settled than he can even comprehend at the sheer levels of  _ domesticity  _ they’re managing right now. With a strange sensation of recognition, Frank sees David with his little basement kitchen and realises all at once that the last person he did anything like this with was  _ David.  _ It hits him like a punchline. He chuckles and presses his face against the place where Matt’s neck meets his shoulders.  
“Now what?” Matt says, but his voice is husky rather than irritated.  
“Used to watch David cook. Weren’t quite like this, before you get jealous.” Frank presses his mouth against Matt’s shoulder so that he can feel the smile.  
“Did you cuddle him, too?”  
“Distracting, is it?”  
“Very.” Matt leans back a little and suddenly his butt is very much nestled against Frank’s crotch and he knows that Matt can probably feel the temperature of his face shoot upwards against his neck. Frank only tightens his arms around his waist. Matt’s body is warm and soft through his shirt and God, as overwhelming as touch was to begin with, Frank can’t seem to stop needing it, now. It’s as if he didn’t realise he was starving, before, now he can’t get enough.

Matt chuckles and sways a little in his arms. Frank rocks along with him. He lifts his head and rests his chin on Matt’s shoulder.  
“You’re doing ok, yeah?” Frank murmurs.  
“I’m ready for this.” Matt nods. He finishes grating the cheese, puts the grater down. He holds the leftover piece in his fingers and tilts his head thoughtfully. “They mean well I know, but they don’t understand.”  
“Yeah I get that.” Frank says. Thinks of Karen.  _ I want there to be an after, for you.  _ Matt reaches back, offering Frank the cheese. Frank laughs again. Can’t believe how much he’s been laughing, just lately. He takes it, of course, like a damn dog treat, and kisses Matt’s neck when he’s eaten it. 

Matt hums happily. Leans his head back against Frank’s.  
“Was your hair always this long?” Matt asks, suddenly. One of Matt’s hands runs through his hair.  
“Uh… why?”  
“I always imagined you with a sort of. Severe buzz cut.” Matt says and Frank snorts but Matt isn’t finished. “It would have been hard to take you seriously with all…  _ this _ going on.”  
“C’mon Red what do you even mean?”  Frank shakes his head, bubbling over with something that shouldn’t be so light but is, anyway.  
“You’re all soft curls.” Matt explains with a smile that’s almost bashful. “Soft curls can’t  _ really  _ be scary, can they?”  
“Guess not.” Frank bows his head to kiss Matt’s shoulder. “Nah it was all buzzed off. I’m letting it grow out. I’ll  _ keep _ letting it grow out if you’re gonna keep touching it like that.” Matt makes a muffled little choking noise.  
“Lucky because I’m not so sure I can stop.”  
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Red.” Frank nudges Matt and he responds, turning around in his arms and planting a kiss right on his lips. Frank chuckles and soon he’s nosing at Matt’s neck and kissing and chuckling and Matt is murmuring indistinct little happy noises and pushing both hands through Frank’s hair and—

There’s a knock on the door.  
Frank stops mid kiss.  
“You knew they were here.” He smirks accusingly up at Matt’s chin, face still pressed against his skin.  
“Mm maybe yeah.”

It’s almost a regular dinner party. Frank doesn’t feel as out of place as he maybe should.

Karen, Foggy and Matt together function like a machine that’s almost  _ almost _ running as it should, but something isn’t quite aligned correctly. There’s gaps. Spaces where a comfortable nudge should be and isn’t. Moments that cut off in an embarrassed little cough that should have ended with laughter. Frank’s seen this. He’s  _ been _ this. It always happened that way, when he came back and didn’t fit quite right. All the components there, just knocked a little out of shape.

But afterwards, when the pasta is eaten and they’ve all had a healthy glass of wine that tasted like Foggy probably paid for it, Matt clears his throat. For all that his shoulders are square and his back is straightened, Matt looks  _ uncomfortable. _

“I have something to say. Please.” He says a little stiffly.

Matt sits with his head bowed. After a long time he takes a deep breath inward and reaches to take Frank’s hand. Frank gets a now familiar lurch in his stomach, at that, but he holds on. “If I don’t go out and save people, they get hurt.” Matt says. He’s keeping it matter of fact but only barely. “I hear them get hurt. I hear it anyway. I can’t. I can’t switch that off.” He squeezes Frank’s hand. “Whatever else I am, why and how else I do it, that part of it is… unavoidable. I have to help. I don’t think I can stop helping. I can’t see why I should want to.”

“Yeah.” It seems to take Foggy a long time to speak, but when he does he’s nodding. He raises his head from its serious angle directed at the table and nods one final, definitive time. His mouth is set in a brave little line. “I. I think I can see that, yeah.”  
“ _ God _ , Matt.” Karen shakes her head.  
“I didn’t tell you this for sympathy.” Matt says, head still down. “I just need you to know. It’s not all. It’s not all about  _ me _ .”  
“Buddy.” Foggy’s eyes are wide. “It’s  _ all _ about you.” Matt stiffens and moves minutely back from Foggy, an unconscious motion. But. Foggy is still speaking. “That you can hear everything you do and… and  _ that’s  _ your takeaway?” He shakes his head. “That you just…  _ need _ to help?”  
“You don’t have to explain yourself to us, Matt. You never did. I’m sorry we… I’m sorry.” Karen’s voice cracks and she presses the back of her hand against her mouth and Matt visibly breaks.

Matt stands, releasing Frank’s hand but not before Frank feels the tremor in his fingers. He moves around the table and his friends stand, almost shakily. The grapple together in a mess of limbs that becomes a desperate three way embrace.

“I owed you the truth and I owed it to you to trust you when you saw that I was hurting this isn’t on either of you.” Matt tells them breathlessly. “But you have to know it isn’t… if I go out it doesn’t mean I’m… that I’m always…”  
“It doesn’t mean you’re always out to hurt yourself I know I get it oh  _ Matt… _ ” Foggy’s voice cracks and Frank feels as if he should look away or leave or something but he doesn’t want to risk dispersing this. They need it. He knows.

Just like that, it’s as if the sky has cleared. All is somehow  _ right _ in the world, now.

They clear up and the tension is gone. It’s as if some heaviness, some darkness that Foggy and Karen have been carrying since Matt died has just gone. Really gone this time. The laughter is more real.

Foggy has lost some physical boundary with Matt that honestly he seems just as relieved to have lost as Matt is that Foggy is casually bumping their shoulders together again. Frank’s never quite seen them like this, but there’s something so natural about that that he knows he’s seeing a little of  _ before _ play out in front of him. Maybe it can be the new  _ now _ .

Karen has allowed herself more wine than Frank’s ever seen her drink. She’s gone a little quiet and giggly and pink in the cheeks and Frank pulls her into a gruff, one armed hug because the way she looks tonight is tugging on his heart in a way he can’t understand.

And when they leave, hours later after an evening of comfortable friendship that even Foggy casually extends to Frank at every opportunity. Matt leads Frank to their bed and Frank hears Matt drop off to sleep almost at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a while but I have been busy and attempting nanowrimo at the same time, trust me there's a lot more to go yet!


End file.
